


Superglue

by athena_crikey



Series: Superglue [1]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: A/B/O, AU, Angst, Broken, Deformity, Gon is 20, Grief, Hisoka in his 30s, M/M, Mpreg, No nen Gon, but also much too kind, floor master Hisoka, gon/killua is past, h/c, hormones make us all crazy, mild dubcon, progeny, stronger together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:08:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 48,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24781309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: Hisoka smiles, his scent all fairgrounds and festivals – caramel corn and sweaty metal machinery. “You want me to show you, don’t you? How to feel? How to fill the parts of you that are broken?Let me,” he purrs.Gon’s mind oscillates but his body has already decided. He needs this. “Yes,” he groans.OR: Life beats you down. Hisoka and Gon discover that they're stronger together.
Relationships: Gon Freecs/Hisoka, Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Series: Superglue [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1836991
Comments: 275
Kudos: 646





	1. Made Strange

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go agaaaaain...

It’s a cold March when Gon returns. 

He’s been gone a long time – years that have passed like centuries in a search that held at first probability, then possibility, and finally only a faint glimmer of hope. In the end, after relentlessly searching the world for a way to restore his nen, he’s still as bereft as he was when he stepped out of the hospital bed eight years ago. 

He’s learned to look at the world differently. To make up for the loss of his nen with strength and perception, honing his already-sharp skills. Sometimes when he looks at nen users he almost thinks he can see their aura, so intense has his focus become. 

Part of it, surprisingly, came from presenting. Omegas have inherently strong senses to protect them from danger and guard their pups, can smell tiny changes in pheromones and hormones that signal a wide variety of intentions, can taste attraction and arousal. If he’d thought about it, Gon might have considered himself more likely to present as an alpha, but he’s never bothered spending time thinking about things that can’t be changed. He is who he is. Omegas, if they’re careful and clever, can have as much influence as any muscle-bound alpha. 

Gon’s grown used to the way their eyes follow him down the street, the way self-assured men and women will step into his path and force him to avoid them, force him to choose to turn them down. Grown used to the irritation, sometimes the anger, when he defies them. 

His body wants a mate, has wanted one since he presented at sixteen. But the only one he’s ever seriously considered was Killua, and Killua won’t accept him. A mate takes precedence, always, and he’s given himself over to protecting Alluka wholeheartedly. They haven’t seen each other since his first heat, since Killua tore himself away from Gon’s needy arms and left him to endure the agonizing madness that overtook him alone. He doesn’t blame Killua, not anymore, but he thinks the silver-haired boy probably still blames himself. They had been so close. So close. And now all they have are memories. 

His mind is filled with those same memories as he walks the wide streets in the shadow of Heaven’s Arena. He’s not sure what made him come back here, except that as he’s come to accept the loss of his nen he feels he’s started a new journey: a search for a place that makes him feel at home. He raises a hand to shield his eyes from the bright shine of the sun behind the immense white tower, looks up at its sleek lines and curves. He still remembers the exhilaration of his fights there, the way he and Killua had ripped through Wing-sensei’s nen lessons like fish through water. 

That happiness feels terribly bitter-sweet now. 

For the afternoon, Gon wanders. Looks through shops and bazaars and parks, eats lunch at a small family restaurant and buys a rich teriyaki-soaked squid-stick from a street-vendor. The city is bustling, filled with scents and brightness and noise; it’s a stark contrast to the endless wilderness he’s been travelling through recently. The presence of so many alphas makes his stomach tense, his body forcibly suppressing his scent in alarm. But there’s nothing to worry about; even without nen he could crush anyone in this city easily. 

Well, almost anybody.

His wandering feet eventually lead him back, as if inexorably, to the front doors of Heaven’s Arena. There are posters on the walls depicting the floor masters and the candidates for the Battle Olympia. Gon walks past them slowly, stopping in front of a familiar face and smiling. Zushi is still a floor master here, taking challenges while on the side leading his own martial arts dojo. He’s grown into a stern, focused man; even from his photo Gon can feel the disciplined power radiating from him. But Gon thinks he can see a hint of the enthusiastic boy he had been, so eager to learn and so disappointed when Gon and Killua had first overtaken him and then left him behind. But he’s stayed here, and he’s prospered. Gon can’t say the same for himself. 

He keeps walking, still smiling, only to be stopped by a second familiar face. The memories this one evokes are much more complicated and without meaning to he slows to a stop and stares. 

_Hisoka Morow_ reads the poster, with a picture of the handsome magician beneath shuffling cards, his gold eyes shining intriguingly. 

Gon hasn’t seen Hisoka in years, not since a couple of random encounters after losing his nen, and not since he presented. The magician had still been intrigued by him when they last met, his low voice throbbing and seductive as always as he considered Gon like a piece of meat he might or might not consume. But in the end, even Hisoka hadn’t wanted him. Had let him go like defective merchandise, allowed Gon to disappear from the view of his sun-bright eyes without protest. 

It left Gon feeling terribly, overwhelmingly empty. 

He finds his hands fisting now as he looks at the poster. Hisoka doesn’t seem to have aged at all, appears the same graceful, elegant manipulator of violence and death as he had been when they first met in the Hunter Exams. Gon still doesn’t think he’s seen the magician’s full power.

Of course now, he probably never will. 

He turns away, throat thick with a sorrow he had thought he was past. The wind ruffles his hair, bringing with it the ugly scents of exhaust and tar – the smells of a city. Maybe coming here was a mistake. Maybe he would have been happier somewhere new, virgin, where he could make his own memories instead of being haunted by the past. Maybe…

“Well,” exclaims a shocked voice. “What _have_ we here?”

Gon turns around, but he already knows who he will see.

Hisoka is standing there in the late afternoon sun, skin softly pale, eyes glinting with humour. He steps closer and suddenly Gon’s nostrils are flooded with his scent: bubble gum and hot metal, strange, discordant scents for an alpha.

An alpha. Of course Hisoka’s an alpha. He hadn’t known it as a child before he was attuned to the smells associated with secondary genders. But what else could the magician possibly be? 

“Hisoka,” he says straightforwardly, shoving away the burdens of his past memories and locking them up safely in the back of his mind. “How’re you doing?”

A smile plays about the magician’s lips, his eyes narrowing pleasantly. “Surviving,” he says. “Although sometimes the boredom here is _appalling_. But I believe I should be asking that of you. Clearly, you haven’t recovered your nen. Retracing your steps?” he asks, and it takes Gon a moment to realise he means Wing-sensei, means the first time he learned how to use it.

“Nah. I… I don’t think I’ll be getting it back. I just wanted to see something familiar, you know? Places, faces. All that stuff.” He presses on past the admission of failure before it can bite into him, but he feels the shallow cuts it leaves in him all the same. 

“A trip down memory lane,” agrees the magician, as if discussing an exotic vacation. “Perhaps you would like to indulge further?”

Gon blinks up at him. Tall as he’s grown Hisoka is still a few inches taller, his shoulders broader than Gon’s and his chest thicker. Despite his ability to bench-press several tonnes, Gon has remained slim, his muscles defined but not ripped, his body comfortable without being either delicate or built. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“Dinner,” proposes Hisoka. “It’s been far too long since we met. I would so hate to lose sight of you for another six years without a decent chat. I can tell a lot has changed,” he purrs.

It’s only with some quick mental arithmetic – not his forte – that Gon is able to verify that it _has_ been six years since he last saw Hisoka. Strange that the magician would remember. 

“Has it?” he asks, puzzled. He’s still the same, still nen-less – except…

“An omega,” hums Hisoka. “Who would have thought the delectable Gon would grow up into an even _more_ delicious omega?” Strangely his scent isn’t abrasive to Gon’s sensitive nose, isn’t domineering but is instead sweet and salty, arousing. He doesn’t want to fight Gon, he wants…

“I’m not looking for a mate, Hisoka,” he says, because it seems best to get these things straight up-front.

The magician blinks. Then, slowly, he laughs. “A mate? I am not the type to commit. Sex is best left without strings, I think.” He raises a hand and runs the back of his index finger along Gon’s cheek; Gon feels a pleasant shiver running up his spine and fights to suppress it. His body is angling forward, eager for this attention. “You _are_ lovely, though. And you smell divine. Dinner is certainly in order.”

Somehow, there’s something almost restful about seeing Hisoka again. With Zushi he would be worried about his current doldrums eclipsing the pleasure of past memories. With Hisoka there is only the present; the past too complex and confusing a tapestry to draw on. He’s always been nervous of the magician, aware that Hisoka is like a cat – always only one pat away from violence. But Gon has nothing to lose now; Hisoka has no reason to fight him. If he wants to have dinner and talk, well, Gon doesn’t have any other plans. 

“Okay,” he says, nodding. Aware of Hisoka’s comment about his scent he’s working to quash it, keep from releasing the pheromones that mark him as available, desirable. But for some reason his body is eager to put itself on the market, neck glands pressing to give off heady, heavy scent redolent of sex. He hasn’t been this close to an alpha in years, hasn’t let his guard down around one so completely as he is now. His body is taking it as a sign of interest. He grits his teeth and focuses, cutting off his traitorous scent glands. 

Hisoka smiles. “Excellent. Would you like to leave anything behind? Or change?”

Gon doesn’t miss the suggestion that they’ll be coming back here later. It makes something heavy and warm churn in his belly. He’s not against it – he has nowhere else to go – but he’s not sure how good an idea it is to get in too deep with Hisoka. The magician has only ever acted in his own interests, and right now Gon isn’t too sure what they are. 

“Do I need to?” he asks, glancing down at his dusty form. He’s wearing the same knee-length green coat, slacks and shirt that he has been since he last bought some clothes. His ankle-high boots are muddy but hard-wearing, his backpack small. He’s always travelled light. “We’re not going anywhere fancy, are we?”

“Not if you would prefer not to. I know several nearby restaurants where neither of us will stand out.” The magician himself is dressed in his usual crop-top harem pants combination, today with knee-high high-heeled boots. Certainly neither of them would fit into an expensive eatery’s code. “Not that standing out is a bad thing,” he adds thoughtfully, tiger-gold eyes on Gon. 

“Let’s go to one of them, then. You pick.”

“It makes me so happy to think that you trust me,” purrs Hisoka.

Gon colours. “It’s just dinner.”

“Mmm. Food is a gateway to many things, Gon.”

“Not that many,” replies Gon. Hisoka’s smile is razor-edged. 

“I had forgotten how straight-forward you are. You have no fear of contradicting me. Even here, among the world’s strongest fighters, very few contradict me to my face.” He leans forward again and this time Gon can _taste_ the arousal, a flavour like birthday parties, all icing and cotton candy but with something darker beneath. “I like that.” His voice runs like silk over Gon’s skin, raising the hairs at the back of his neck and making that uncertain warmth in his belly twist. 

Gon puts out a hand and pushes Hisoka’s shoulder back. “Too close,” he says, struggling to breathe simple, clean air and not the overwhelming medley of pheromones the alpha is letting off. “I need some space, Hisoka.”

“Of course.” The magician pulls back. “Your nose always _was_ sensitive. And now…” he grins. “What, I wonder, do I smell like? Sugar, spice, and all things nice?”

“Oh, never mind that,” says Gon, who senses Hisoka may be too flattered to know he smells like candy and steel, sweet and strong. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

Hisoka gives a mock bow, hand to his heart, long eyelashes sweeping against his pale cheek. “Your wish is my command.”

Something about his solicitousness concerns Gon. But then, what does he have to lose?

  
***

Hisoka takes him to a place serving food from Lukso, lots of spice and vegetable dishes. It reminds Gon of Kurapika, another friend he hasn’t seen in years.

Despite the lonely memories, he’s glad of the choice. The air is full of strong, rich aromas: cumin and chili and curry, as well as tender roast lamb and sizzling spiced chicken. With such delicious flavours wafting about, he can hardly detect Hisoka’s much more subtle scent. 

The magician makes up for the lack of pheromones by ensuring his hands are close to Gon’s, fingers often brushing. Lukso food is finger-food, shared savoury dishes scooped up with hand-torn pieces of bread. Their fingers are soon oily from the bread, Hisoka’s smooth and warm when his hand bumps against Gon’s, spilling bright yellow saffron chicken onto the table. There’s no way the touches are accidental – Hisoka is one of the most deliberate people Gon knows, although the reasoning behind his actions is often clear only to himself. Each touch makes his heart leap, sends a pump of burning-hot blood through his body followed by an echoing ache. 

Surprisingly, Hisoka isn’t a bad conversationalist. He actually listens, which Gon has learned over the past few years is not a universal trait. And he’s thoughtful with his words – too thoughtful, if anything, his speech full of insinuations and double-entendres. 

“It happened a while ago,” Gon finds himself telling the magician, although he can’t understand why he’s willing to share his failures. Maybe it’s because Hisoka is so removed from him as to hold no power of judgement, no sway on his choices. “I just… gave up. Realised I was never going to get it back. That I was just going to be empty forever. So I started looking for something that made me happy. I went home to Whale Island to see Aunt Mito. I thought I could be happy there; it’s where I grew up, where the only house I’ve ever had is.” He looks down at the spicy red sauce smeared across his flatbread.

“But you weren’t. Happy,” says Hisoka. 

Gon looks up at him and shakes his head. That realization, that his home is lost to him, still hurts even now. “It wasn’t my home anymore. I left it behind to become a Hunter, and now it’s filled with memories of a time when I was happy. All being there did is remind me of how unhappy I am now. Everything, it all changed, and –”

“Of course it didn’t,” interrupts Hisoka, tearing a piece of bread daintily, as if rending Gon’s words. “It was you that changed. You were made strange, you finally came to realize that you’re no longer who you were – who you wanted to be.”

“Made strange?”

“You don’t know? I had thought you, of all people, would. They say it of infants when they first realise they can lose their mothers. You have finally come to realise that your nen is lost to you.”

Gon swallows painfully. Hisoka says it matter-of-factly, accompanying his words with dipping a piece of bread into some lamb stew, but the words hurt in a way that’s new to him. He’s never felt words land like a blow before, knocking the stuffing out of him. He wants to scream; he wants to cry. But all he does is sit there in the bright, colourful restaurant staring down at the hot bowls of food in front of him slowly shredding his bread. He feels hot, feels sweat sticking his shirt to his back, feels uncomfortable in his tight clothes and shimmies uneasily. 

“All the same,” continues Hisoka, licking stew from his lips, “I’m surprised you’re alone. You’ve always been so good at making friends with even the most unsavoury types.”

Gon stares back. “Like you?” he asks. 

Hisoka’s smile freshens. “My,” he breathes. 

“Sorry. That was mean. You’re not wrong – I’ve made a lot of friends. All over the world, all kinds of people. But I think what you’re asking is: why don’t I have a mate?”

Hisoka slowly licks a drop of stew from his thumb, tongue long and sensuous. His eyes are glittering under the yellow pot lighting. They do something to Gon’s stomach, tie it up in hot, sweaty knots. That stare captivates him, fuels his imagination in directions it’s never gone before. Makes him wonder what it would feel like to have those eyes staring down at him from above, his hips pinned hot and tight and his hands held down. Gon shakes his head and tries to focus. 

“For a long time, it was because I didn’t want to be tied down. I knew I had to keep moving, keep searching, and I didn’t want to pull someone away from their home to be with me. It had been okay with Killua because he didn’t want to go home, but…”

“But then he found sister dearest,” purrs Hisoka. “And you like your share of the attention.”

Gon flushes, hot and uncomfortable. “I don’t know if that’s true. But Killua wouldn’t be my mate. And if not him… I haven’t wanted anybody else.”

“Really?” asks Hisoka, leaning forward. “Or has no one wanted you? So strong, so stubborn, so forth-right. Not the qualities traditional alphas look for in their mates.”

The words catch him in the stomach and stun him, his innermost-thoughts brought out to light. He hasn’t wanted a mate, he _hasn’t_. But he’s also become terribly, horribly aware that no one would want him even if he did. Killua wouldn’t take him, nor Kite, nor even Bisky or Hanzo. Not that he had offered Bisky or Hanzo. But they had made it clear: he wasn’t for them.

“Is it maybe,” wonders Hisoka across the steaming dishes in a low, curious tone, “because you’re a little bit _broken?_ ”

Gon stares back at him. Broken? Is that what he is? Damaged goods, marred beyond repair? “I don’t know,” he whispers back.

Hisoka reaches across the table and catches his hand, weaving their fingers together. His skin almost burns where the magician touches it, his head spinning. He doesn’t know why Hisoka is having this effect on him – no one else ever has, except Killua that one, first time. 

“So strong, yet so fragile. I’ve been waiting years just to break you, Gon. And now I find someone else already has. It’s disappointing.”

Gon swallows. “Are you bored?” he asks. 

Hisoka tilts his head to one side, considering. “Hmm. No. Not yet. The pain in your eyes is quite as beautiful as your eagerness ever was. Ethereal; exquisite. I’ve been waiting a long time to see that look there; even if I was not the one to cause it, I still _crave_ it.”

With the magician’s hand in his he can feel his body softening, hungry to be touched, can catch hints of his alluring scent even through the thick aroma of their dinner. Hisoka rubs his thumb down the side of Gon’s hand, the gesture smooth and erotic; Gon shivers. 

“I still crave _you_ ,” adds the magician, his teeth white beneath his lips – bared whether in in amusement or hunger, Gon isn’t quite sure. 

“Hisoka…” His flat-out refusal dies on his lips. He wants this. Wants the magician’s touch, wants to feel needed, desired. Wants to be something other than broken and tossed aside. “I don’t – I’m not…”

“Pleasure can be as meaningful as pain,” promises Hisoka. “A lesson I think perhaps you haven’t learned. Poor Gon; no one to teach him how to _feel_. What lengths must you go to alone to make up for it?”

Gon flushes. Because of course his heats have been spent alone – in tubs full of ice or seated on frozen bags of vegetables or playing with himself until he comes, hungry ass full of silicon toys. Aching, painful heats that seem to stretch on into infinity, his body crying out in desperation and receiving no answer.

The way it is now.

“I’m not lonely,” he lies, staring at the table.

Hisoka releases his hand and leans closer, uses his index finger to tilt Gon’s chin upwards until their eyes meet. “You’re a very poor liar. And a very delicious treat. So gobble down your dinner, and I’ll show you what you’ve been missing.”

  
***

Gon insists on paying. His bank account is brimming from years of hard work with almost no expenditures, and it’s a salve to his wounded self-image. The fact that Hisoka lets him do it without argument erases any sense of accomplishment from having won the check.

Outside they stand in the young moonlight, the streetlamps glowing around them like buttery halos. 

It’s still early in March and it’s cold, but Gon doesn’t feel it. His body is still flushed from the heat of the restaurant, his shirt sticky with sweat. He feels restless, his hips swaying, his feet shuffling on the pavement. The frigid air makes Hisoka’s scent crisp and clear; it hangs heavily around him so that he can almost feel it brushing against his skin like humidity, thick and sweltering. He’s breathing deeply, soaking in the smell, the way it makes his nerves tingle. The way it makes his thighs spread, ass canting upwards. Hisoka runs a thumb down Gon’s cheek and he stares, captivated, starved of touch. 

This isn’t right. This shouldn’t feel this good; he shouldn’t be this responsive. He’s almost panting, his skin still hot even after several minutes in the cold. 

This is a heat cycle. He’s going into heat. Softly, eyes still caught by Hisoka’s golden ones, he moans. 

Hisoka smiles, his scent all fairgrounds and festivals – caramel corn and sweaty metal machinery. “You want me to show you, don’t you? How to feel? How to fill the parts of you that are broken? _Let me_ ,” he purrs. 

Gon’s mind oscillates but his body has already decided. He needs this. “ _Yes_ ,” he groans.


	2. Broken Toys

Gon realises as he stumbles through the streets, Hisoka’s arm draped possessively over his shoulders, that the magician probably smelled the heat coming when they first met. That dinner was nothing but a ploy to get him into bed, to have him at his most wanton. A small part of him finds that alarming. 

Most of him is too overwhelmed by sensation to care. His nose is full of Hisoka’s thick, pervasive scent, of the twined promises of possession and satisfaction that it holds. Even through two layers of clothes his skin is fiery where Hisoka touches him, his face pressed in against the magician’s neck. His scent is strongest there, a heavy odour of spun sugar and hot, relentless steel. He can feel Hisoka’s heartbeat thrumming beneath his skin, the way the alpha’s heart is racing in anticipation of the coupling that is to come. 

Gon wants more, wants to taste that lust on his tongue; he laps out wetly against Hisoka’s throat, painting a wet strip up it from shoulder to jaw. He tastes of Lukso spices, of mulled wine, of sweat and summer and just a little of sex. Gon nuzzles his nose closer and Hisoka’s hand on his arm tightens painfully, clawed fingers digging into the flesh of his bicep. 

“Now now,” says the magician huskily, tone playful but dark pupils blown wide by desire. “I’m getting too old for fucking in alleyways, however attractive the trick. Besides, someone might try to fight me for you and it’s so tiresome getting blood out of these clothes.”

The idea of Hisoka fighting another alpha for him, of another’s predatory scent circling in hungrily, excites Gon. His body is hungry for sex and violence, eager to be rutted into until his leaking ass is finally full with the satisfaction he’s never yet found. The idea of multiple alphas fighting for him, fucking him, while usually abhorrent now makes his heart race. Hisoka gives a low, throaty chuckle and pulls him along. 

Despite the magician’s supposed reluctance to fight for him, Gon is very aware of his reaction to the two alphas they pass who prick up at the smell of an omega in heat. Hisoka glances at them, golden eyes flat and lips just slightly curled to reveal the tips of pointed teeth, and they scramble away. 

_Nen_ , thinks Gon. He’s using his nen to crush their spirits just as he once had to challenge Killua and Gon on the 200th floor of Heaven’s Arena. Gon can feel it in the way Hisoka’s gait shifts, the way his spine straightens and his scent grows slightly more metallic. But the nen itself, he can’t feel at all. 

The sudden shock of sorrow brings a moment of clarity to his heat-fogged brain. Is he really intending to spend his heat with Hisoka? The magician has no moral compass, no hesitation to do evil so long as it appeals to him. But he’s also the one shadow Gon has never quite stopped chasing, the one challenge he’s never surmounted. Hisoka occupies a special place in his heart – neither friend nor enemy, but one of the few people whose influence has unerringly guided Gon’s actions. 

The idea of being with Hisoka physically, having him, sends a wave of slick warmth through his belly. Hisoka’s always wanted him, but never quite enough to actually take. Now that’s changed. Now he’s found someone who doesn’t care that he is a failure, is broken, is bereft. Found someone who’s _glad_ of it. 

He can’t think of anyone better to spend a heat with. 

His legs are growing weak, his instincts telling him to press himself against the alpha, to squirm and moan and lick until Hisoka is so consumed by lust and instinct that he takes him right here in the street. But Gon hasn’t made it through the past four years without an alpha for nothing: even with his mind on fire, he knows restraint. 

It takes every single ounce of it to make it back to Heaven’s Arena, and Hisoka’s apartment. 

Hisoka leads him into the confines of the elevator, thumbing his pass over the reader and pressing a button; Gon doesn’t know which. He’s pressed against Hisoka’s chest, his nose tucked in beneath the corner of Hisoka’s jaw, softly smelling the strong controlling alpha pheromones that speak of power and command and domination. They’re overwhelming in this confined space, Gon starting to pant, his underwear wet and uncomfortable and his skin burning up. Hisoka wraps his arms around him and tucks the tips of his fingers down inside the back of Gon’s pants; he moans and cants himself forward, hungry for that touch, for the scratch of Hisoka’s nails on his buttocks and the firm press of his fingers. 

The elevator door beeps as they arrive at Hisoka’s floor but Gon is too lost in the alpha’s scent, in the feel of Hisoka’s strong chest against his and his arms around him. Hisoka makes a low throaty noise and scoops Gon up, hands beneath his thighs, carrying him out of the elevator and down the hall like Gon was made of silk rather than muscle and bone. His breath is hot against Gon’s heart, Gon’s legs wrapped around his waist and the firm surface of his abs _delicious_ against Gon’s aching cock. He starts rubbing against Hisoka, mewling with frustrated want; the magician laughs. 

“Hmm, impatient aren’t you?” His hands tighten against Gon’s thighs, thumbs brushing back towards his ass. 

“ _Hisoka_ ,” Gon breathes, the name a whisper, his need made manifest. 

They reach the door of Hisoka’s apartment and he opens it, stepping into the dark space beyond. Gon has a sense of openness, of starlight pouring in through vast windows and twinkling city lights. Then the door is closing and Hisoka is slamming him into it, shoving Gon’s shirt up to lick at his sweat-dampened skin. Hisoka’s tongue leaves a trail like magma across Gon’s stomach and chest even as he works Gon’s coat off his shoulders – it falls from him and for all he knows could be consumed in flames and lost forever. He only has awareness for the fact that without its insulating weight constraining him he’s free to press his scent glands, releasing a musk designed for only one purpose: to draw alphas to him. 

Hisoka growls and bites at his nipple, his fingers tightening on Gon’s thighs. They’re both panting, Hisoka descending quickly into rut, and things like clothes become nothing but a frustrating barrier. The magician rips his shirt from him, his breath hot over Gon’s exposed skin, and then starts in on his belt buckle. He’s retained enough of himself to undo the clasp and then he’s tossing Gon to the ground and pulling his pants and underwear off, Gon squirming free of the constricting cloth and kicking off his boots. 

Gon’s thighs are wet with slick, his ass weeping and ready to be fucked. Hisoka presses his legs open and licks his hot tongue over the sensitive skin of Gon’s inner thighs, humming with pleasure at the taste of him. The sensation of his tongue is maddeningly sensual, his touch like fire, like ice, like anything that burns and Gon _wants more_. Wants Hisoka to fuck him right there in the foyer, wants all the licks and kisses and bites he’s never had. 

He forces himself to bring his chin down to consider Hisoka, and sees that the magician is consumed, rapt by Gon’s naked body, by his scent and taste and warmth. Hisoka’s eyes are the warm colour of honey in the summer sun, the wetness of his mouth against Gon’s delicate skin unforgettable, incomparable. He’s breathing hard as he licks closer to Gon’s core, set on devouring him, and Gon nearly weeps with the joy of it, his heart full to bursting with need and promise and pleasure. 

Gon’s never seen an alpha in full rut before and from Hisoka’s scent alone he can tell the magician is very close to it, the metallic smell to his scent overpowering. Gon squirms to try to focus his attention on his aching cock or his hot core, but Hisoka is single-minded and pays him no attention, working at his own speed. Gon can feel the pressure of his intensity, knows that if he pushes too hard Hisoka will hurt him, intent only on getting his own way. He rests his head on the cool marble floor of the foyer, legs spread, and lets Hisoka work his mouth across his thighs at his own speed.

When the alpha’s tongue finally reaches his slick, burning core Gon cries out, body shuddering with the sensation of being entered. Hisoka licks into him, moaning hungrily, his nails pricking the skin just above Gon’s knees as he holds his legs splayed. Only when he’s had his fill, tongue slipping sensuously over his lips, eyes burning like midnight oil, does he rise. He unzips his knee-high boots and kicks them off, then pushes the waist of his pants down. 

Hisoka’s cock is swollen and dew-tipped, almost as big as the ones Gon’s seen in the occasional porn videos he’s watched, erect and ready. Hisoka crawls up over him, hitching Gon’s knees high, his back pressed against the cold floor. 

“Tell me you want it,” he murmurs in Gon’s ear, his breath hot, his body hot against Gon, everything about him stoking the fire that burns within Gon. His body is crying out for relief, for sensation, for fulfilment. He moans and arches against Hisoka, seeking the press of his prick.

“Tell me,” repeats the alpha.

“Please,” Gon groans, teeth catching his lip. Hisoka leans down and kisses him, a strange, stiff sensation – his lips aren’t soft and warm but hard, unforgiving. 

“Tell me, Gon,” growls Hisoka, the order permeating into Gon's hindbrain.

“I want it,” he pants. “ _Oh_ , I want it.” His eyes are closed tight, his arms wrapped around Hisoka, clinging to him. 

With a hungry grunt Hisoka thrusts inside him, claiming him, the first to ever take him in heat. He’s big, so big, but the pressure of his cock inside Gon sends fireworks bursting through his nerves, drives pleasure into his brain like nails, hammering him until he’s half dead with the ecstasy. Every move, every thrust Hisoka makes burns like oil over water, sears exquisite satisfaction into him. He twists against the magician, arching his back to bring them closer together, to bury Hisoka’s dick inside him. Hisoka’s licking at his lips, his jaw, his throat; when that hot tongue runs over his scent glands Gon shudders. His body is aching to be marked, to be taken, his scent flooding Hisoka’s mouth and _begging_ to be claimed. 

“ _Hisoka_ ,” he groans, eyes fluttering closed, body awash with fiery need and burning fulfilment, nerves on overload. He’s nothing but fire seeking to be doused, Hisoka the only relief that exists in this world and Gon wants to drink him down, wants Hisoka to fill him with his seed until it leaks out of him. 

Hisoka’s groaning as he thrusts in, his hands clawing into Gon’s shoulders and back, his hips pounding a relentless rhythm that’s slowly driving Gon insane. Against his naked skin Gon can feel that the fingers of Hisoka’s left hand are strange, are hard and cold in a way his right hand isn’t, but that doesn’t matter, is meaningless in the face of the sensation of their coupling, their fucking. Hisoka buries his dick fully in Gon’s ass and starts giving little rough jerks of his hips; with his full length inserted Gon can feel it canting against something inside him, something amazing, something that makes his earlier pleasure feel like a raindrop compared to an ocean. Each thrust drives him closer to that incomprehensible depth of ecstasy, lets a little of it pour in, his body shivering with the bliss. 

He’s chanting Hisoka’s name as the alpha ruts into him, his heavy body crushing Gon into the floor, his hips brushing closer, closer, _closer_ to that rapture until all there is in the world is Hisoka thrusting into him, driving Gon to the edge. 

Without warning Hisoka pulls back, nearly out completely, and hammers his hips forward, the fat head of his cock slamming into Gon’s inner depth and his orgasm floods his body with euphoria. His hips slam back into Hisoka as he comes, spilling over his stomach, his body alight with bliss. He only peripherally feels Hisoka coming inside him, pounding into him with gruff grunts. 

Instead of pulling out Hisoka slowly lowers himself down, flattening Gon against the floor. “Mine,” he purrs, his mouth beside Gon’s ear. “All mine.”

The possessiveness of it, the closeness of Hisoka’s body and the aggression of his scent makes Gon’s hips twitch. He’s getting hard again.

“Show me,” Gon says, and turns over to kiss him.

  
***

Hisoka eventually takes advantage of a lull in the heat to bring Gon to his room and strip out of his remaining clothes. His bed is immense, the covers hot pink shot through with black stars, the sheets silk. He rolls Gon into it and fucks him slowly, neither of their bodies demanding it yet, but both hungry for the other’s touch.

“You make me so wild,” he murmurs to Gon as he thrusts in, Gon’s head thrown back and his eyes shuttered, staring up at the ceiling through his lashes. “I wonder why? In six years, I couldn’t forget you once. And now…” He moans as Gon rolls his hips, Hisoka pinching his nipple with his strange left hand as he fucks upwards. “Now I never want to let you go.”

“That’s… that’s the rut,” pants Gon, his own body similarly aching for Hisoka, wanting to be with him even outside the heat madness. 

“Mmm. I have had many ruts, many desires. But never such a _hunger_.” His voice catches as he comes, his orgasm sending Gon over the edge as well. He bites down on the tip of Gon’s ear slowly, consideringly. “You make me quite mad,” he admits, sounding curious. He pulls out and lays them down together, Gon in front of him, his arms wrapped around the omega. This closeness feels good, feels right. Gon closes his eyes.

“I don’t know why, but I never forgot you either, Hisoka.”

Hisoka releases a scent that tastes of of bubble gum and sweaty spear-grips; arousal. “Mm,” says Gon. “Wait for the next wave.” He feels Hisoka’s fingers dig into his side as he falls into a deep sleep.

  
***

When he wakes they’re fucking again, Hisoka driving him into the silk-shrouded mattress. His mind is foggy with heat once more, his body burning up. He lies there and pants as Hisoka pounds into him, the alpha’s tongue licking over his scent gland erotically. One bite would tie them together; his body is aching for it, wanting a mate like Hisoka who will fuck him senseless and monopolize him. Hisoka’s already staked his claim by beating off the other alphas, has proven himself a successful mate in every sense of the word but one: he hasn’t claimed Gon with a bite.

Hisoka comes with a heady moan, keeps slamming into Gon until he’s emptied himself. Gon’s still hard, still hot and aching, and he turns over with a mewling moan, reaching down for his cock. 

Hisoka gives him a considering glance, teeth scraping over the skin of his gland making Gon’s body twitch. He licks his way down Gon’s body until he’s at his groin, lowers his head and takes Gon’s dick into his mouth. The feeling of his hot tongue against the throbbing, sensitive skin is amazing, is euphoric. Hisoka starts to bob and suck and Gon spreads his legs, welcoming him, his body opening itself to the magician. He throws his head back, exposing his neck, and pants as Hisoka gets him off. He’s already on the edge and it only takes Hisoka licking his tongue into Gon’s swollen slit to make him come, shooting off into Hisoka’s mouth. The magician swallows his seed down, using his thumb to wipe away a bit on his cheek that he missed. Then he comes up and kisses Gon, sharing his salty taste. 

Gon smiles up at him and takes his hand, weaving their fingers together. Hisoka stares down at it, surprised. But he doesn’t pull back.

  
***

They take a bath in the magician’s full-sized Jacuzzi, getting half-way clean before becoming overrun by another wave of heat, then wash off quickly in the shower.

It’s the next day already and Hisoka makes oatmeal for breakfast while Gon dozes. They eat together in bed, Gon unsure how long the heat has left to run. 

“Your hand,” he says, pointing at Hisoka’s left with his spoon. “And your lips. There’s something wrong about them.”

Hisoka raises his eyebrows, and Gon flushes. “Sorry. I mean – not wrong, but… different.”

“No. You are correct. I lost them some years ago in a scintillating fight. One of the best I’ve ever had,” he says, voice musing. “Ah, it was wonderful.”

“You lost them?” Gon frowns at his fingers, still very much there.

“This is Bungee Gum and Texture Surprise,” says Hisoka, wriggling his fingers. “Texture Surprise is undetectable to the eye, but the difference can be felt.”

“Oh.” Gon. And then: “Can I see?”

“It isn’t a pretty sight,” says the magician, eyes watchful. 

“I don’t mind. I mean… it’s you. The real you. That’s who I want to know.”

Hisoka shrugs and raises his hand. The nen disappears revealing a fingerless stump, the places where his fingers used to be now just shiny raised nubs. His lips and nose disappear as well, the skin of his face pulled back and his teeth bared. His nose is just a shadowed cavity, the edges blackened, burnt; the skin surrounding his mouth is shiny and red, pulled taut. 

Gon blinks. It’s shocking. Really shocking. Hisoka has always been careful about his appearance, has always been pretty and put together. And he’s always seemed unbeatable. That someone could do this to him… it makes Gon’s heart hurt. He looks down, chest tight.

“Ugly, aren’t I?” asks Hisoka plainly. “Perhaps you regret accepting me?”

Gon looks up, eyes wide and wet; Hisoka blinks. “Who did this to you?” Gon demands angrily, hands fisting.

Hisoka’s expression of surprise is overtaken by a softer look. “Someone you could never hope to defeat,” he says, kindly. “It was a maiming entirely of my own choosing. I have no regrets.”

“It’s not right,” insists Gon. “I could take you to Greed Island; we could use the Angel’s Breath and –”

“I told you,” repeats Hisoka, “I have no regrets.” He pulls a hand over his face and the destruction vanishes to be replaced by his handsome features. His fingers reappear with a second wave. “Pretty as it is, I am not defined by my face, nor my fingers.”

“I’m not defined by my nen. But losing it still almost destroyed me,” says Gon. And then, curiously: “Hisoka, are you broken too?”

Hisoka’s smile is like sunshine on a shattered mirror, all sharp edges. “Oh, I don’t believe I was ever whole to begin with,” he replies.

  
***

The next wave will be the last, Gon knows as he feels his skin starting to burn. He’s retaining more of himself now, is able to kiss and fondle Hisoka even as the magician pushes him into the mattress and claims him. They’re working together this time, not just Hisoka dominating him and Gon submitting, but the two of them driving together towards fulfilment.

They’re nearing the edge when Hisoka starts licking against his neck, starts lapping against the sensitive skin of his scent gland. His teeth graze it and Gon moans, his body tightening around Hisoka momentarily. “Hisoka…” 

The desire for a mate is incredibly strong, drives him to moan and squirm and sigh, tries to loosen his tongue to beg Hisoka to take him. Hisoka who his body wants more than anything. Hisoka who is strong and scary and as broken as he is. 

“How do you make me so utterly mad?” wonders the magician, mouth against his neck. “How is it that you make me so _hungry?_ ”

Gon moans, body rocking with each thrust of the magician’s hips, so close to fulfilment, so aching with want. 

“I’ve never wanted a mate,” murmurs Hisoka. Gon’s His head is rolling on the pillow, his body twitching with pleasure. “But I. Want. You.”

“ _Hisoka_ ,” hisses Gon, demand and permission and desire all rolled into that one word. 

Hisoka bites down on his neck, and the burst of pain is followed by an explosion of pleasure, Gon’s body flooding with ecstasy, with rapture, every nerve end firing in pleasure. He spills with a cry, back arching against the silk-covered mattress.

When he finishes Hisoka is just coming inside him, still licking at his aching neck. Hisoka who is now _his_ , whose scent no longer just arouses and compels him, but also calms and completes him. Gon buries his face in Hisoka’s neck as the magician pulls out, drinking in the heady smell of him. 

“ _Mine_ ,” purrs Hisoka, stretching out against him, his fingers feathering through Gon’s hair. 

Gon closes his eyes. _No_ , he thinks. _Mine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember kids, don't make important life decisions while under the influence...


	3. Please Please Me

Gon feels different, he realises as he lies next to a dozing Hisoka, his own mind poking and prodding at the unfamiliar swell of emotions in his chest: ardour, affection, dedication.

In the past Hisoka has evoked a wide range of feelings in Gon, from gratitude to fear to rage. But never affection. Gon’s found love in his heart for plenty of damaged, violent people, people trained to do horrible things, people who have made a living through death and destruction. 

Hisoka is different. He kills only on his own volition, not for pay or promises. He is fickle – whimsical, he called himself back in Heaven’s Arena – and he gives no care to the feelings of others. Everything he does, he does for his own amusement. 

_Selfish_ , Gon thinks. It’s a word he’s very familiar with. It lay unspoken between him and Killua for years as they pursued Gon’s dreams, as Gon sacrificed whatever he cared to do the capricious gods of fate while denying Killua’s own sacrifices. 

“Just like Ging,” Kite had said once, and at the time Gon had taken it as the highest of compliments. He still thinks that’s the spirit in which the Chimera Ant meant it. But over time the words have festered like maggots in a corpse, slowly eating away at him. Just like Ging, who didn’t seem to care if Kite was alive or dead. Just like Ging, who had left his baby with Aunt Mito and never looked back. Just like Ging, who had attended Hunter meetings and participated in public debates instead of visiting his dying son. 

For years, it hadn’t mattered. And then Killua had left him, and Kite, and Biscuit, and suddenly Gon realised that he was becoming Ging, was becoming alone. That everyone had other friends, other loved ones they preferred to be with. And all he could think was: _There’s something wrong with me._

Broken. Empty. Selfish. They’re all words that have lately begun to haunt him.

Hisoka, he thinks, understands. He’s spent his life growing through others like a hermit crab grows through shells, breaking each of them at the end before moving on to the next. Gon’s not afraid of that; he’s already broken. For now, for this moment, Hisoka is captivated by him, is willing to make him his everything. 

Lying on his side watching Hisoka slowly inhale and exhale, Gon wonders if two selfish people can make one selfless one. His neck is aching from the magician’s mark; as he breathes in Hisoka’s soft sleeping scent it calms him, washes away his worries and doubts. 

Gon closes his eyes and lets sleep overtake him.

  
***

Gon wakes to the smell of sizzling meat. He knows even before he opens his eyes that he’s alone in the bed, that Hisoka is gone from the room. He opens his eyes slowly and stretches, body cashing in ticket after ticket that it hadn’t claimed during his heat: layers of exhaustion and bruises that hadn’t made themselves felt during that frantic coupling pile on now like cement blocks, crushing him down. He groans, staring up tiredly at the ceiling.

He’s naked in the bed, and as he looks around enquiringly he realises he doesn’t remember what happened to his clothes. He has vague, blurry memories of cotton ripping, of Hisoka’s hands pulling his clothes off of him; they’re overshadowed by the much stronger memories of Hisoka’s scent and weight and touch, of the feeling of him moving inside, spilling into Gon’s ass. 

In the back of his mind something turns over, dislodging a low dusting of concern that doesn’t quite make it up to the level of his consciousness. The worry sits like ice cubes in his belly, cold and slippery, and he doesn’t feel like prodding it. This is the first time he’s felt content in a long time; he wants to enjoy it.

So instead of pursuing it he drags himself up and looks around Hisoka’s bedroom. It’s big – bigger than any bedroom he’s ever seen – with the immense bed against one wall with a fabulous view out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Late afternoon sun is filtering in, the shadows below stretching as dusk grows near, the city painted gold. There’s a door that leads to the glittering bathroom, and another that’s closed and therefore is for now a mystery. The third door leads out into the apartment. Gon gets up slowly, crossing past a low pair of chairs and side table positioned on a neon blue shag pile rug, and out into the apartment.

The sense of size he had vaguely taken in when Hisoka first brought him in doesn’t do justice to the reality. The apartment is open-concept and hugely spacious, with a kitchen in the far corner and a dining area a little ways away from a sitting area with sofas and a huge wall-mounted TV. There’s a door at the far end leading into presumably yet more space. His clothes, he sees, are still lying on the entryway floor; even from here he can tell that his shirt is a goner. 

Hisoka is in the kitchen wearing a crimson silk robe, open at the front, making what smells like stir-fry. His red hair is down and damp, his movements languorous. The sight of the long, straight line of his spine sends a note of pining through Gon; he wants to be close to his mate, within arm’s reach. 

Hisoka looks up sharply, eyes narrowing in pleasure as he sees Gon. His face is clean, no make-up on his eyes or cheeks, his nose and lips perfect as though they had never been missing. He reaches out a long finger and curls it inwards, beckoning; Gon crosses the room as if pulled by Bungee Gum, hungry to obey. This close he can smell Hisoka beneath the stronger aroma of cooking meat and vegetables; he smells like home. 

_Home_ , thinks Gon, dazzled, as he looks up at his mate. 

“That’s a very flattering look on you,” notes Hisoka, reaching out to run a sharp nail over Gon’s cheekbone. 

Gon blinks. “Huh?”

“Dazed and naked,” purrs Hisoka, smiling sharply. In the setting sun his golden eyes have an orangish hue, deep and dangerous. Gon grins back; he is dangerous in his own right, and Hisoka’s strength is something for him to marvel at, not fear.

“I can’t help it. You ripped up my clothes.” He points to the pile by the front door. 

“Hmm. Feel free to find yourself something you like in my closet. Although you’re not quite my size, I would _adore_ seeing you draped in my finery. Not that I mind your current apparel,” His thumb curls over Gon’s cheek, then he’s pulling away to shove his spoon into the sizzling wok. 

Gon pouts for a minute, then he turns to head back to the bedroom. He finds that the closed door leads to Hisoka’s closet; a walk-in that’s the size of a small bedroom. There are rows of colourful clothes on hangers, mostly matching tops and trousers with a variety of bizarre undergarments. Hisoka’s wardrobe doesn’t take up even half of the space available in the closet, and is missing several key components like sweaters and jeans. He can tell by looking at it that most of what’s there is far too big for him, not to mention definitely not his style. Digging in the back Gon finally comes up with a pair of loose jogging pants that might have been left by a former floor master, and a tight tank-top in fresh forest green. He pulls them on, then passes barefoot back into the kitchen. 

This time Hisoka drops the spoon as Gon approaches from behind. He turns, eyes hard, and looks Gon up and down. Then he’s moving, pinning Gon against the granite-topped kitchen island and pulling back his lips to show his teeth. He runs his nose down Gon, over his chest and down to his hips. He drops to one knee, face close to Gon’s thigh, the hem of his robe pooling like blood on the floor. 

“What,” he growls, pulling at the jogging pants and looking up, “are these?”

Gon blinks. “Pants. They were in your closet.”

“They’re not _mine_ ,” replies Hisoka, voice low. His eyes are narrow not with pleasure but the threat of violence, his scent metallic and menacing. Gon feels himself trying to shrink away and forces his spine up straight. 

“They were in your closet,” he repeats. “The rest of your stuff is too big, and –”

“Take them off,” orders Hisoka, fingers curling into Gon’s hips, nails digging painfully into his flesh. 

“But –”

“You may wear your clothes. Or mine. But no other’s,” growls the magician. An instant later he’s forcing the loose pants down over Gon’s hips, claw-like nails scratching cuts into Gon’s skin. Gon gasps at the sudden cutting pain, but bends to push the pants down and steps out of them. Hisoka lowers his face to lick at the bleeding cuts. “No one else touches you,” he says, voice throbbing as he rests his chin against Gon’s thigh and looks up, eyes bright with menace beneath his scarlet hair. 

Gon’s breathing hard, staring down at the magician kneeling on the floor. They’re just pants, he wants to say. But he knows right now, so soon after mating, they’re not. Their scent on him is a challenge from another, a threat. 

“Okay,” he breathes, and sees Hisoka’s smile spread, slow and sweet as molasses. 

“Then go find something else. Dinner is almost ready.”

  
***

In the end he pulls on his own pants, dirty and slightly ragged but still wearable. Hisoka has served out steaming stir-fry over rice, thick with the smells of meat and soy sauce. After more than a day of almost-continuous sex Gon’s empty stomach feels like it’s eating away at itself in starvation; he sits and immediately starts shovelling away food.

Surprisingly, it’s good. Really good, flavourful and juicy. The chicken is dripping with sauce, the vegetables hot but still crisp. “Hisoka, I didn’t know you could cook! This is delicious!”

“Mmm, you make me feel so domestic. I just want to fatten you up,” purrs the magician, chin resting on the back of his hand, fork dangling from his fingers. The words dislodge more concern at the back of Gon’s mind, but he’s too busy wolfing down food to care. 

He finishes first and the magician assures him there are seconds; Gon serves himself more and returns. He eats his second plate more slowly than the first, savouring the tastes and textures. The snow peas are crisp and snapping, the onions golden brown, the peppers sweet and tangy with soy sauce. His feet curl around the chair legs with satisfied delight. “Mmm.”

Hisoka laughs. It’s quiet, just a low chuckle in the back of his throat, but it sends waves of warmth and security through Gon. Hisoka is pleased, pleased with him. He wants to soak up that approval, wants to let it wash over him like ocean waves, comforting him. 

“Are you happy?” asks Gon, looking over at him. 

“I’ve never taken pleasure in pleasing another. But your happiness pleases me,” the magician admits. 

The bond works both ways, of course. Just as Hisoka’s joy pleases Gon, so too does Gon’s satisfaction fulfil the alpha. Of course, plenty of mated pairs have weak bonds or stronger rages, the alphas hurting their omegas, the omegas betraying their alphas. But much as Gon has worked to help others over the years he’s never received such simple and yet profound feedback from his actions. Has never felt so happy having done so little. That must be the sign of a strong bond. 

“It’s a little frightening. Knowing how strongly your feelings influence mine. Before… that never really mattered,” says Gon.

“Not so deep down, we’re both very selfish people,” agrees Hisoka, and Gon jerks slightly at the word, staring. Hisoka’s lips curl upwards at his reaction, savouring Gon’s discomfort. “I have never had any sense of obligation to another, although there have been many I have longed to possess. Now I possess you, but…” he trails off, laying his fork down on his empty plate and tapping his nails thoughtfully against his cheek.

“But?” prompts Gon, hanging off his words. 

“I would gladly have given much to make you mine, your future in my hands, your pain or pleasure at my command alone. But I had not expected to _care_. I do not care; that has defined me, always. And now…” He reaches over and brushes his thumb against Gon’s cheek, his sweet scent calling out to Gon. Gon closes his eyes and nuzzles into the warmth of Hisoka’s touch, his own scent glands pressing to release a fragrance of pleasure, happiness. “You are trying to make me _care_. It is foreign; anathema.” Hisoka drops his hand and stands, chair screeching on the hardwood floor. He looks cold, distant, his eyes glittering like ice in the sun. 

“I’m not _trying_ to do anything,” says Gon, staring up at him. “It’s who I am, who you are.”

“No. This is chemistry, not identity.”

“You’re my alpha and –”

“I am Hisoka. You are Gon. You are mine, and that means it is my choice what to feel,” hisses Hisoka, face tight, eyes narrow. 

_It doesn’t work like that_ , Gon wants to say, but he knows that Hisoka knows that. Knows that this is frustration, anger, maybe even fear. Knows that if Hisoka doesn’t want to feel emotionally manipulated, it’s his job to make that happen until he’s ready to accept the realities of a bond. “Okay,” he says softly. “You’re Hisoka. I’m Gon. I’m yours. But Hisoka, that means you’re also mine.”

The magician stares back at him for a moment, hands resting on the back of his chair. “Acceptable,” he says finally. 

Gon smiles. “Good. Are we okay?”

Slowly, the magician untenses. He releases the chair and shrugs. “Sufficiently,” he answers. He moves away from the table. Just like that, the conversation is over.

“Guess I’ll do the dishes since you cooked,” says Gon, standing too. 

“The maid will take care of them,” dismisses Hisoka. 

Gon blinks. But of course there’s maid service; this is a floor master’s suite, huge and glittering and trouble-free. Floor masters are the elite of Heaven’s Arena, its celebrities, and are treated lavishly. But… “I want to,” he says. “It’s only fair.” He grabs the dishes and carries them over to the sink, rinsing them with soapy water that smells sharply of citrus, then drying them off. He goes through the cupboards looking for their home; the crockery is all of a set, plain white but with a weight that suggests quality.

Hisoka gestures at the door at the opposite end of the apartment from his own room. “There’s another bedroom through there. You may make it yours, if you want to. But you sleep with me, unless I say otherwise,” he orders. 

Gon steps over to him. He’s still a little icy, his affront not melted off yet. “You’re mine. I want to be with you,” he tells Hisoka, not quite close enough to him to touch. 

“And you will be, whether you want to or not,” replies Hisoka, glancing back at him with the callous cruelty he’s famous for. In the past, Gon has been certain that he simply didn’t care what affect he had on those around him. Now, he thinks Hisoka is looking for stability on shifting sands, is trying to bend the world to his will and rewrite reality to suit himself.

But reality doesn’t work that way. Gon’s instinct is to release a calming, contented scent; he fights it down. Hisoka would perceive that as more manipulation. Instead he simply nods. 

“Good. Tomorrow we’ll find some other clothes for you to wear. Tonight, you may explore the rest of the floor if you choose, or do as you care to. I have some paperwork to do.”

“Okay.”

“If you’re going out, take my pass. It will grant you access to any room on this floor.” He indicates a small fob on the corner of the kitchen’s island. 

Gon nods, scooping it up and leaving Hisoka on the couch with a manila envelope of papers, presumably fight requests, and a pen. Out in the hallway he breathes clean air that holds no hint of Hisoka’s musk, of the magician’s powerful presence. A low pining squeezes at his heart, lonely without his alpha. He shakes his head and continues on.

He wanders down the hall and tries the different doors he comes to. There’s a gym, a steamy cedar wood sauna, and even a large onsen with several different pools and windows that look out over the city. The water is hot and soft, just slightly slippery when Gon puts his hand into one of the pools to test. 

And there is, of course, the arena. 

Hisoka’s arena is large and cavernous, seats rising along the sharply-angled floor creating a foreshortening effect. It smells of beer and popcorn, the floors sticky from years of spilt food and drinks. Lit only by safety lights it’s a den of shadows, long rows of seats looming like teeth, the ring below a grizzled grey as of dirty snow. 

Gon walks slowly down the aisle to the ring. There are raised platforms to act as access for both Hisoka and his challenger dotted with laser lights and smoke machines. Looking up he can see spotlights and cameras hanging from scaffolding mounted to the ceiling, their glass lenses glittering darkly in the shadows. 

He boosts himself up onto the raised platform. It’s just as he remembers it, large concrete slabs forming a 10 meter by 10 meter grid. Gon runs his fingers over the rough surface, remembers hauling slabs up, remembers shattering them.

Remembers Hisoka’s shocked, _thrilled_ golden eyes as he slipped between the rubble to land a solid blow to his face. 

Everything he had done back then had seemed so purposeful, so essential. Life unrolling like a bright carpet in front of him with only one path to tread. 

Now as he stands in the dark arena he sees only shadows around him, no way forward, no way back. No familiar faces in the audience, no one cheering him on. He sinks to his knees, sits down on the cold floor, darkness pouring over him.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, legs slowly growing numb, mind horribly empty. It feels like an eternity, like being lost at sea, only the empty horizon to stare at. He doesn’t have the strength to pull himself up, to walk away into the unknown. Doesn’t have the ability to see a path forward. 

Far up above a door slams open, bright white light silhouetting a familiar figure. Strong shoulders and a narrow waist, long legs and high heels. Boots click on the cement steps as Hisoka enters the arena and descends step by step towards him, hands on his swaying hips. He’s put on his clothes and make-up, his shirt cut to show off his biceps and smooth abdomen, his pants hugging his hips and flaring out over his strong thighs. 

Gon stares, heart racing.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” murmurs Hisoka, his voice carrying across the distance despite the quietness of his tone. He hops over the raised barrier at the edge of the seats and walks across, high heels clicking on the floor of the arena. He reaches the ring, the raised platform chest-high, and rests his elbows on it like a child at an ice cream parlour. “Reliving former glory?”

“Hisoka!”

The magician tilts his head to the side thoughtfully. “Hmm?”

“You’re here!”

Hisoka’s smile is mischievous. “Where else would I be?”

His heart is pounding against his ribs, his skin suddenly flushed. Like a curtain being drawn to let in the sun his gloom vanishes, replaced by comfort and solace. Gon opens his mouth to reply and finds he has no words; simply shakes his head. 

Hisoka boosts himself up onto the platform and walks steadily across, kneeling down in front of Gon. “Were you pining for what is lost?” he asks curiously, his voice warm. “Or reflecting on what is found?” He reaches out and runs the pad of his thumb over the healing mark on Gon’s neck; it sends a shock of heat through Gon, comfort and arousal rushing through him so suddenly he opens his mouth to suck in a breath.

“ _Hisoka_ ,” he says again, this time his voice low, hungry. Hisoka presses forward and he tips over backwards, off-balance; the magician kneels above him, pressing hard rubbery lips to his, wet tongue fighting for admission. Gon opens his mouth and Hisoka pushes forward, plundering roughly, his kiss all tongue and teeth. His palm runs down over Gon’s stomach to cup his cock, the heel of his hand rubbing against him. Gon moans into the kiss. 

Hisoka undoes his belt, pulling away from his kiss to look down at his panting mate. “Such a beautiful sight. Too bad there’s no audience to appreciate it.” He leans close, whispering against Gon’s ear, his breath hot and moist. “Wouldn’t you like me to take you in front of them, to feel their eyes on you as I fuck you senseless? We could sell tickets, right here in the ring – wouldn’t that be _something?_ ”

He’s palming Gon’s hard dick, Gon’s skin hot and arousal pooling thickly in his belly. Hisoka takes his head in his hand and forcibly turns his face to the side, looking out at the dark seats. “You can almost hear them, can’t you? Watching, cheering – I bet they would record you on their phones for later, would keep those images of me screwing you to watch over and over.” He pushes his thumb into Gon’s mouth, Gon lapping helplessly at the digit – it’s his real one, his right hand, and it tastes of soy sauce and ink. 

Hisoka pushes down his own pants and cants in, using his nen-hand to catch their cocks together and stroke them, the magician’s hips grinding down on his. The feel of Hisoka’s prick against his sends a shock through him, makes him buck up into the grip of his false hand. It’s erotic, arousing, his body tense with pressure, with pleasure. 

“Moan for them, Gon. Moan for me,” orders the magician, using his thumb to lever Gon’s mouth open. Saliva leaks out, hot and wet over his chin; he mews, gasps, moans as Hisoka keeps moving their hips against each other. He doesn’t have the stamina he had in his heat, isn’t going to last. Hisoka’s moving faster, grinding harder, and finally his rubbery thumb passes up over the head of Gon’s cock and he groans and comes right there on the arena floor. 

Hisoka gives a breathless laugh and rises. A moment later his thick, leaking cock is shoved in Gon’s mouth, Hisoka resettling his weight over Gon’s chest. “Mmm, so good,” he moans, head thrown back, one hand buried in his own crimson hair, his eyes shuttered. “ _Gon_ , yes, like that. _Oh_ , I’ve wanted this.” His hips move gently, bumping his cock deeper into Gon’s mouth as he licks and sucks. When he finally comes it’s without warning, emptying his load down Gon’s throat; Gon coughs and swallows him down, his throat flaming. 

Hisoka rises elegantly, covering himself, his eyes shining. “Wasn’t that fun?” he purrs, hands on his hips, looking proud and extremely satisfied. “Honestly, I don’t know whether I’d rather show you off or hoard you all to myself,” he muses, fingers tapping his cheek. 

The idea of being paraded about like a prize, like a possession, makes Gon’s stomach churn. But… a part of him had been excited by Hisoka’s words as they fucked, by the idea of an audience. 

Suddenly his mind paints in Killua in the stands, watching Hisoka touch him, lick him, take him. His heart pounds a wave of ice water through his veins and he shivers. 

“Hmm?” asks Hisoka, aware of his sudden flash of panic. His eyes catch Gon’s, sharp, perceptive. 

“Nothing. Can we go back now? To your apartment?”

“ _Our_ apartment,” corrects the magician. “I will get you a pass, and you will stay. Won’t you?”

It’s not really a question. Gon nods all the same. 

“Yes.”

After all, he has nowhere else to go.


	4. Clothes and Consequences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Discussion of abortion

Gon’s still tired from his heat, body heavy and numb. After returning to the apartment he strips, bathes and turns into bed in just his briefs. The pillows and the sheets haven’t been changed; the bed is redolent of sweat and sex, of their coupling, of Hisoka’s thick commanding scent. His body melts into the mattress, comforted by the heady smells. 

He’s half-asleep when Hisoka comes in, his body relaxing at the presence of his mate. Hisoka pulls back the covers and slips in, mattress dipping beneath his weight. He smells of cotton candy and iron nails, unconsciously, Gon takes in a deep breath, savouring the scent. Hisoka bends over him and runs his hot tongue over Gon’s mark, his thumb tilting Gon’s head upwards to expose his neck. It sends a jolt of warmth flooding Gon’s insides, making him gasp; his eyelashes flutter on the verge of wakefulness. He feels like he’s floating in a bubble bath, feels surrounded by warmth. Hisoka makes a low, pleased noise in his throat and lies down beside him. Then all is stillness and slumber. 

Gon wakes sometime in the middle of the night to realise they’ve found each other in the darkness, Hisoka with an arm thrown over his waist, his nose buried in Gon’s hair. He feels cocooned and safe, at peace. He sighs and goes back to sleep.

  
***

When he wakes sunlight is streaming in through the windows and the shower is going in the bathroom. Gon sits up and stretches, spine popping. There’s a wide mirror over a beautifully carved dresser on the other side of the room; he crosses over to it and looks at the mark on his neck. It’s still puffy and red, the dark outlines of Hisoka’s teeth visible. In time it will fade to a soft silver, almost invisible and yet entirely indelible. He passes his fingers lightly over it; there’s only an angry pain when he touches it. But Hisoka’s touch is entirely different, calls to him in a way nothing ever has.

The cold slippery anxiousness in his belly is back, soaking his guts in slime so that they churn like eels; he presses his hand down firmly over his stomach and focuses on the day ahead of him. 

He doesn’t need a shower this morning; instead he pulls on the clothes he wore last night and wanders out into the kitchen. 

Hisoka’s fridge is full of high protein food; he probably eats a lot to maintain his muscle mass, Gon thinks. He pulls out a carton of eggs and some bacon and digs out a frying pan. Lays the slices of bacon onto the wide surface and turns on the heat. Soon it’s sizzling, its rich fatty smell making his stomach growl. He breaks the eggs in and flips the bacon.

With his face over the steaming grill he doesn’t hear or smell Hisoka coming. Suddenly there’s a presence behind his back, strong arms looping over his shoulders and teeth against his neck.

Gon shouts and slams his elbows backwards, hot skillet going flying and crashing down onto the floor. Unrelenting arms pull in closer, a mouth to his ear: “Just me, Gon dearest,” come the words in the magician’s throbbing voice. Hisoka’s plastered Gon against him, his chest to Gon’s back, his groin against Gon’s ass. With the frying food removed from the stove he can smell Hisoka, the alpha’s scent wrapped around him, enshrouding him. 

Gon swivels to stare at him, eye to eye, his heart pounding a mile a minute. “Hisoka! You scared the shit out of me.”

Hisoka smiles and releases him. “Apologies,” he murmurs unapologetically. 

Gon looks down at the steaming mess that is their breakfast, now spread on the kitchen floor. “Awww. I wanted to make breakfast for you.”

“There’s plenty more in the fridge,” replies the magician, lifting the skillet and dropping it into the sink with a clatter. “Or you can order in. Anywhere in the Arena will deliver here as a priority.”

Gon looks sadly down at the runny egg and twisted bacon on the floor. He sighs, then gets the turner and a fork and scrapes the food that fell on the floor into the garbage. Then he cleans off the skillet and pulls open the fridge to get out more eggs and bacon.

Hisoka’s right; he can always try again.

  
***

After breakfast Hisoka takes him down to the reception on the 200th floor to get him his pass to the Arena, allowing him access to all the unrestricted floors as well as Hisoka’s – 240. Gon’s aware of the clerk’s curious eyes on him as Hisoka bends to fill in the paperwork and wonders if she remembers him from eight years ago.

Then he realises her curiosity is due to his relationship with Hisoka, not his own past at the Arena. His fame was fleeting, long since disappeared and replaced by other younger fighters. It’s only the bruised mark on his neck that attracts her attention now. 

“Done,” says Hisoka after a few minutes, pushing the paperwork across to her. She reviews it quickly, then gets her computer to spit out a new fob. 

“It’s yours,” she says, handing it to Gon. “This will give you 24/7 access to floors 1 through 200, as well as 240. You can also use it to charge anything in the Arena to the room’s account.”

He smiles and pockets the fob. “Thanks.”

She bows. “Thank you.”

“Now,” says Hisoka, eyes shining slyly, “clothes.”

  
***

The magician leads him through the streets below Heaven’s Arena purposefully, not once stopping to look in the windows of any shops they pass, although several of them are displaying men’s fashion. They pass by boutiques and department stores, small thrift shops and shoe emporiums. Hisoka ignores all of them, striding along the sidewalk with Gon by his side.

They end up in a high-end arcade with a long covered walkway lined by expensive shops, the window displays wood-framed and sparsely elegant, the clothes without price tags. Gon is uncomfortably aware that this is far above his usual standard of dress, as well as his usual budget.

“Um,” he says, as they pass a men’s hatter selling bespoke hats, “this isn’t really what I had in mind. I mean – this place is beautiful! But…”

Hisoka glances at him. “You didn’t think I bought my clothes off the rack, did you?”

Truthfully, he’s never once considered where the magician purchased his eclectic outfits. “I don’t know. But I usually just get mine at an outdoors store. Their stuff is pretty hardwearing.” 

“You’re not adventuring on the savanna now,” replies Hisoka, finally stopping at a store and pulling the door open, holding it for Gon. “In you go.”

He steps in to a world of colour and soft upbeat music. There are bright clothes on mannequins and piled on display shelves, a selection of shoes and boots in one corner and hats in another. The main part of the store is given over to strangely-cut shirts, jackets and pants in a variety of unusual fabrics. 

“Mr Morow,” coos a short man in a blue velvet suit with a candy cane stripped shirt. He’s plump and jovial and has a thick twitching moustache. “What a pleasant surprise. And this is…?”

“Gon,” says Gon. “Hisoka’s – I’m…” the words don’t come out, and he realises he hasn’t once said it out loud, has hardly even thought it. _His mate._

“He’s mine,” finishes Hisoka simply, unworried, and Gon sees the man’s eyes drop to his mark. “And dreadfully attired,” the magician adds. 

“I’ve certainly seen better,” agrees the clerk, hands on his pudgy hips, lips pursed thoughtfully. Gon feels suddenly like he’s a slab of meet hanging in a butcher’s window on display to passersby. “What’s your style, Mr Gon? Classic? Fashion forward? Eccentric? Extravagant?”

Gon looks around at the clothes on display. “Um. I don’t know. I usually just wear stuff that will last, that’s easy to move in.”

“All our clothes are made to an excellent standard and are very hardwearing. As for movement, of course we can find plenty of options.”

“Perhaps some suggestions,” says Hisoka, smiling at Gon’s uncertainty. “Something simple but dramatic. He likes green,” he adds. 

_Dramatic?_ Thinks Gon, swallowing as the clerk bustles away to look through the store’s wares. He’s never been dramatic – at least, not in his dress. Hisoka sits down on a blue and yellow striped couch and crosses his legs, eyes amused. He produces a pack of cards from somewhere and begins shuffling them between his dextrous hands. 

The clerk fills a rack next to the fitting room with clothes, pants and shirts and jackets and even hats and boots. Gon watches as more and more is added to the rack, nervousness mounting. He feels like a doll being dressed up, like a prize being shown off. 

But, after all, he _is_ Hisoka’s to show off, if the alpha chooses to. Hisoka’s always had a much higher standard of dress than him. It’s not completely odd that he would want Gon to look good. 

“Mr Gon,” calls the clerk. He’s put a set of clothes into the fitting room. “If you’d like to try?”

Gon steps in and toes off his boots, then stares up at the clothes he’s been provided with. Tight forest-green jeans with flared hems, a button-up paisley leaf-green shirt, and a long frock coat in a green so dark it’s almost black, the lapels picked out in lighter green piping. 

Gon pulls it all on and looks in the mirror; grimaces. He looks like an accountant going out to a disco. The coat alone he kind of likes; it’s cut to show off his lean build and the breadth of his shoulders, and as he flexes his muscles he finds that it’s roomy and comfortable. 

“Well?” calls Hisoka. Gon flushes and steps out, standing awkwardly beside the fitting room door. 

“Disco prep,” dismisses Hisoka, clearly of the same opinion as him. Gon sighs thankfully and steps back in, peeling off the clothes and trying on the next set. Dark brown thin-wale corduroy pants that are high-waisted with suspenders, a short knit green sweater with thick cables on the front, and a newsboy hat that flattens his hair strangely. 

“Highlands newsboy,” says Hisoka when he steps out, waving his hand dismissively. 

They try an emerald green suit ( _Pariston in Pea Green_ , says Hisoka), tight faded blue jeans with a long-sleeve terry cloth shirt ( _Gutter rat_ ), and a set of overalls with a button-up flannel shirt ( _Gay lumberjack_ ). 

But as they’ve been trying different things, Gon’s been pulling together pieces he likes. He goes back and tries on the brown corduroy pants with suspenders, the long-sleeve green shirt, and the frock coat. There’s no particular style to it, no sense of trying to be something. But it gives him a long-legged coltish look with just a bit of flare. He pokes out shyly in it, rubbing at the back of his head. 

“Hisoka?”

The magician smiles, thumb brushing over his lip. “Whale Island chic,” he dubs it. 

“That’s what I am,” replies Gon, huffily, and then realises Hisoka is praising him. He blushes. 

“We can try a few variations,” suggests the clerk. “Perhaps a pair of jeans, and a turtleneck –”

“Nothing high-necked,” interrupts Hisoka, and Gon can feel his eyes on his mark. Knows Hisoka wants it on display, wants his stamp of ownership prominent for all to see. 

“Of course,” murmurs the clerk. “I’ll bring some ideas.”

They’re there a further half-hour while Gon tries on boots and other options to make sure he has a decent wardrobe. In the end he comes away with four shirts, two pairs of pants, another pair of boots and some handkerchiefs. 

Hisoka pays for all of it without question, and arranges for it to be delivered to his apartment. Gon’s too exhausted by the fitting process to feel like arguing, simply allows the magician to hand over his cash card. 

When they’re done he heads out into the arcade and turns right, towards home. But Hisoka grabs his shoulder and swivels him around. “One more stop,” he murmurs.

“What? _More?_ Why?”

“You’ll see,” purrs Hisoka.

They walk two doors down and stop at a store with its window full of gift-wrapped boxes and champagne glasses. Gon frowns and looks up at the sign overhead. 

_Midnight Lingerie_

He colours; Hisoka laughs. “But – I – you – _Hisoka!_ ”

“I want you to look just as delicious in bed as in the street,” says Hisoka, and pulls the door open and tugs Gon through.

Inside the boutique has several different rooms with brightly patterned wallpaper and tables displaying lacy underwear, thongs, teddies and bras. There are negligees and bodysuits, fishnet stockings and gloves. Gon doesn’t know where to look, the shop ladies smiling sweetly at him as Hisoka ushers him through the various rooms. He can’t help but think they’re staring at his mark, at the angry red bite on his throat. Everyone can see he’s newly mated, and as much as he doesn’t want to care, part of him finds it deeply embarrassing. Especially knowing Hisoka’s so proud of it. 

“Mmm, what do you like?” asks Hisoka, stopping by a table of thongs in crimson silk. He holds one up for Gon, head tilted to the side. Gon feels like his throat is closing up, like he’s hyperventilating, growing dizzy. 

“I’ve never – this stuff – I –”

“Shall I pick out some for you?” suggests the magician, grinning coyly. “Something _lacy_ and _soft_ and very, _very_ erotic?” he proposes, picking up a lacy scrap of fabric that’s more holes than it is substance. “You would look _simply divine_ in this.”

“ _Hisoka_ ,” hisses Gon, unable to find the air to shout. Hisoka smiles. 

“That’s a yes, then,” he says happily, and walks away from the table with it in his hand. He picks out several more items while trailing through the store on his way to the till, Gon following him with his eyes firmly on the ground. 

Hisoka pays once more, this time taking his purchases with him wrapped delicately in tissue paper and hidden away in a discreet brown paper bag. Gon, lightheaded, follows him outside and sucks in deep breaths of air, Hisoka watching in amusement. 

“There isn’t anything else, is there?” Gon asks, worriedly. 

“My, you sound so apprehensive. No; I had no other plans. Shall we return to the Arena?”

Gon nods thankfully and they head in that direction, the immense tower an easy landmark. As they walk Gon spots a drug store and pauses. “I want to buy some stuff,” he says, breaking off and heading for the door. “Shampoo and a new toothbrush; you know. I’ll meet you back at your place – our place,” he corrects. 

Hisoka shrugs. “Very well.”

Gon gives him a little wave and enters the store, grabbing a shopping basket. In truth he could use Hisoka’s products and get a new toothbrush from room service, but it feels good to have a few moments to himself, to have a minute to recover his composure. He flips the collar of his coat up to hide his mark and starts browsing the aisles. 

He pulls a toothbrush and toothpaste into his basket, followed by floss, deodorant, and hair gel. A brush, a razor, some shaving gel. All things Hisoka doubtless has, but it would be nice to be self-sufficient. 

He continues on down the aisles passing foot care, first aid, vitamins. And then suddenly he’s staring at rows of boxed condoms adorned with pictures of stallions and warriors and with words like _pure pleasure_ and _extra-wide girth!_

The anxious churning in his gut wells up like a geyser, pounding fear through his veins. 

Protection. They hadn’t used protection during his heat. He’s never used hormonal birth control, hasn’t ever had sex enough to warrant anything more than condoms, and has never had sex during his heat. He was so fuzzy-headed, and then so caught up with his bond, that it completely slipped his mind. 

He could be pregnant right now. With pup by Hisoka, his body filled with the magician’s seed. How many times did they do it? Six? Seven? He can’t even remember. 

Gon’s breaking out in a cold sweat. In a panic he reaches across and pulls several boxes of condoms into his basket, closing the barn door far, far too late. Should he see the pharmacist? Get a pill?

Does he want a baby? _Does Hisoka?_

He stands there staring at the colourful boxes, heart hammering in his chest, completely unaware of the people passing by. He tries to listen to his body, tries to sense whether there’s anything different about himself, any sign of a pregnancy. Should he buy a test? 

Should he buy a pill?

“Looking for a man to use those with?” 

A low, throaty voice breaks into his sweaty thoughts. Gon looks up and sees a heavy-set man with close-cropped hair and bulging eyes staring at him hungrily. “I’ll fill you up, little omega,” he rumbles. 

“No thanks,” says Gon curtly, and turns away. The man grabs his arm, a heavy scent of spoilt milk and earthy musk smearing itself on him. 

“Maybe I wasn’t clear: I wasn’t asking.” 

Gon can taste his thick, slimy want, fatty and sour like rancid lard. It makes his stomach churn, his mouth watering as a prelude to retching. “Let go,” he grits out, jaw tight, eyes narrow. In his basket the boxes of condoms tip over, tumbling against the bottle of shampoo and shaving cream. 

“Make me,” he says, and Gon loses his patience.

With his free hand he reaches around and grabs the alpha’s restraining hand. Looks up at him, and squeezes. The alpha’s face goes pale, then puce, then blue, as he squeezes. 

“Leave me alone,” orders Gon, and lets go. The alpha sinks to the ground cradling his crushed hand and whimpering. Gon leaves him there and goes to the front counter, paying for his purchases. 

He walks back to Heaven’s Arena slowly, his bag on his arm. 

He can’t stop shaking.

  
***

Hisoka’s building a card house when he returns; Gon closes the door softly behind him and rests his head against it. His heart is still thrumming in his veins, his gut churning.

He’s so muddled. Anxious, afraid, enraged, his emotions are on a quick-cycling loop that he feels helpless to control. His bag falls from his arm and the contents spill out onto the marble entryway. Hisoka looks up, puts down the cards, and comes over. 

On the floor are the half-dozen boxes of condoms, bought in a panic. The magician looks down at them, eyebrow raised. “Planning a party?” he asks, dryly. Gon doesn’t react, just stays staring at the ground. Hisoka’s nose twitch and he leans in closer, taking Gon’s arm where the sour milk-smelling alpha had grabbed him. “Who touched you?” he asks, tone low and dangerous.

“Some asshole in the store; he wouldn’t let go. I broke his hand,” replies Gon, flatly. 

Hisoka reaches out and hooks a finger under Gon’s chin, raises his head. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks curtly. Gon stares up at those pitiless golden eyes and his knees shake. 

“I think – I might be pregnant,” he says softly, the words sounding like a curse in his ears, like a promise that’s now destined to come true. 

Hisoka stares down at him, face unemotional. “Oh?”

“Because – I wasn’t on birth control. Before. During my heat. And you didn’t use protection. And now…” his voice fades away, anxiety cycling to fear. 

Hisoka releases his chin and straightens. “Hmm. It’s certainly possible. Are you adverse to the idea?”

“Adverse? I’ve never thought about it – I never imagined it could happen. How could I be a parent?”

“Plenty of others entirely less qualified seem to manage it,” dismisses Hisoka. 

Gon’s hands fist, his knees locked to keep from spilling him down onto the floor. “I don’t know what to do. Should I get the morning after pill? Would it even still work? Should I see a doctor, or get a test, or –” He swallows. “Is it even right to do anything? If there is a pup, isn’t it mine? And yours? Shouldn’t I want to have it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” replies Hisoka coldly. “Pups are entirely out of my domain. If you want it, keep it. If not, get rid of it. Simple.”

“Do _you_ want it?” he asks, quietly. 

Hisoka crosses his arms. “I have no interest in raising a whelp. But I would allow you to keep it, if you chose to.”

It sounds like a pathetic concession, but Gon knows there are alphas who have no interest in their omegas spending time rearing children, knows that they will abandon their omega or else try to kill the pup rather than lose their position as sole focus of attention. 

Slowly, like a flower wilting from lack of water, Gon sinks to the ground. He feels cold, empty. Afraid. Killua always took charge at times like this, always knew what to do. Hisoka seems entirely uninterested in helping him. “I don’t know what to do,” he says again, looking up at the magician who is standing over him, weight tipped back, looking down imperiously. 

“Then do nothing. You have time to make a decision. Doctors have their uses.”

Gon swallows. Get rid of a baby? That feels terribly wrong, feels like a betrayal. But raising a pup with Hisoka?

He leans his head down on his knees and closes his eyes. After a minute he hears Hisoka walk away, bored with the conversation. 

_I don’t know what to do._


	5. Sealed With a Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is late because I wrote the entire chapter, then threw it out and wrote an entirely different one. Don't say I'm not committed. :P

Gon’s always been an actor, not a thinker. Sitting on the cold floor with his back against the door, his mind is horribly, uselessly blank. Every thought he tries to grasp slips through his fingers like water, every hope he tries to hold onto crumbles. His insides feel like a heap of knots, guts twisted tight and heart shuddering against his ribs. 

He looks up and sees Hisoka sitting on the couch playing a game of patience on the low coffee table, his attention on the cards in front of him. Gon’s instincts tell him to go to the alpha, to rely on his touch, his presence to calm himself. To strengthen their bond through shared adversity. 

But while Hisoka wants him, he’s made it clear he is wary of this bond. Doesn’t want the tug of Gon’s emotions, the influence of his heart. To be mated isn’t to be loved, but to Hisoka the two must seem terribly similar, more similar than he anticipated. 

Gon stands slowly and pads across the room. He sits down beside the magician, who continues placing cards on the table: red on black and black on red. On his left cheek is the magenta teardrop, carefully painted on his pale skin. Gon’s never wondered about the significance of his make-up, applied and removed ritualistically every day. He reaches out and presses the tips of two fingers to the tear; it doesn’t smear at his touch. 

Hisoka glances at him, just his eyes moving, golden irises shadowed like old brass. 

“Will you talk to me?” he asks, tone subdued. Slowly, carefully, he tugs Hisoka’s face to his neck, the magician’s breath hot against his sensitive skin. “What do you smell?” he asks softly. 

Hisoka huffs. “Despair,” he answers, eyelashes fluttering sensuously. “Quite delicious.”

But there’s a flatness to his tone that belies his words. His hands are tight over his cards, the corners of his mouth sharply defined. His pupils are tiny pinpricks in the golden discs of his eyes. 

“It hurts you, doesn’t it? When I hurt. I’m sorry.”

Hisoka’s hands twitch. “Pity doesn’t suit you,” he says flatly, raising his head and staring down at his mate. “Nor does uncertainty. When have you ever hesitated in the past?”

“Omegas are supposed to think of others. Not of themselves.”

Hisoka raises one sculpted eyebrow. “And when have you ever been defined by expectations? When have you cared what anyone thought of you?”

Gon swallows. “Is that kind of selfishness really a good thing?” He thinks of Aunt Mito raising Ging’s child alone, of her tears at his departure, of Killua’s face right before he used the entirety of his nen to scorch Pitou to ashes. 

“Selfless dedication to another is terribly boring. As is self-doubt. You’ve never bored me in the past; don’t start now.” He’s playing with an ace in his hands, making it multiply and then disappear apparently without thought. 

Hisoka wants possession without dependence, physicality without love. But that’s not what being mated means; Gon’s body is sure of that and he knows Hisoka’s must be as well. He wants his mate, wants Hisoka’s heavy-lidded gaze on him, wants his scent on his skin and the touch of his tongue on his mark. And, deep down, under the onion layers of fear and doubt and worry, he knows that the greatest expression of their bond is a child. Is the fact that Hisoka has gotten him with pup, has claimed him utterly. 

Here beside Hisoka, the soft sound of cards shuffling in his ears and the magician’s metallic scent in his nostrils, he knows what the right decision is. A selfish decision, a unilateral one.

“If you’ve gotten me pregnant, I’ll keep it,” he says, pressing his thigh against Hisoka’s. He plucks the cards out of the magician’s hand and plays the next one: red 5 on black 6. Looks up at the magician’s surprised eyes and stares back. “If not, we should wait.” He takes a breath. “I’m not the same as I used to be. I’m not so confident anymore. But if that’s what you want, that’s who I’ll try to be.” 

“Hmm. What I want,” ponders the magician, taking back his cards and shuffling them between his two hands like an aerial bridge. “I want to see the light in your eyes shining just for me. Perhaps someday, I will watch it fade,” he purrs. He drops the cards into his lap and raises his hand to rest his fingers on Gon’s cheek, his thumb tucked beneath his jaw. Gon’s heart speeds, excitement mixed with satisfaction at the touch, and Hisoka smiles. “Very good,” he praises, and Gon’s skin warms with the compliment. He leans forward and kisses the edge of Hisoka’s jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. Smells the magician’s metallic scent softening into sugar. 

For now, at least, he doesn’t object to Gon’s gentling. 

Gon climbs onto his lap, raising Hisoka’s face to kiss him head-on and savouring the warmth that blooms within him.

The cards slip to the ground, forgotten.

  
***

Later, he dithers over whether to get a pregnancy test or not. To be honest, he’s not sure he’s really ready to find out, despite his snap-judgement prompted by Hisoka’s prodding.

“Can’t you tell by my smell?” he asks, lying on the sofa with Hisoka atop him, hot and satisfied from a round of impassioned frottage, his pants now sticky and wet. “If I’m pregnant? If it’s yours?”

Hisoka tucks his face into Gon’s neck, licking languidly at his mark and making contented pleasure blossom within him. His smell is thick and sultry, like sticky fruit drinks at sunset, like hot metal in the summer sun. 

“My nose is not so sensitive. In time, I will know,” replies the magician, tone relaxed, blissful. 

Gon nuzzles his chin gently against Hisoka’s face, spreading his gratified scent all over the alpha. Hisoka’s arms tighten around him, pulling him in close. His eyes are closed, his movements smooth and instinctive. 

_Happiness_. Gon’s forgotten how simple, how fundamental it is. How his body swells with it, untensing and relaxing, his head falling back to allow unhindered access to his throat. The simple pleasure of his mate’s contact, of Hisoka’s attention and interest, wipes out his despair like it had never been.

This kind of power is frightening. It’s a kind of dominance Gon never dreamed of as a child seeking strength. The ability to have such a profound influence over another without once flexing a muscle, the ability to make them heady with joy or broken with sorrow, scares the part of him that’s distinct from his flesh, the corner of his mind that remains watchful even as he relaxes. He presses himself to Hisoka, tries to let his instinctive comfort in the contact wash away his sudden spike of fear. 

“Such power,” muses Hisoka, apparently on a similar wavelength. He runs the pad of his thumb over the ridge of Gon’s throat from chin to the hollow between his collar bones, skating over his Adam’s apple and bumping against cartilage. “I could pluck out your windpipe now, and what then?”

“Then I’d die. And you wouldn’t have a mate,” replies Gon, unafraid. He can sense Hisoka’s torpor, the laziness in his heavy body. He’s taunting, not threatening. 

“Is it so special?” he wonders. “You want me, but what is willingness? I want you, but I find pleasure in denial. Poor arguments for such a price.”

“What price?” asks Gon. 

Hisoka snorts against his throat, a warm puff of breath. “You can feel it just as well as I. Feel the way we call to one another. I have never been ruled by another. I don’t intend to start now.”

“I don’t want to control you, Hisoka.”

“And yet,” drawls the magician. As if to say, _And yet, here we are_ , Gon trapped beneath his warm weight, the two of them intertwined inexorably. “And yet, you make me want.”

“You’ve always wanted me. Haven’t you? It’s not new.” 

“Mmm. True, you were a captivating youth; so fearless, so simple. And your eyes, such fire.” He gives a little moan, his heartbeat a steady tattoo against Gon’s chest, his hips rolling just slightly against Gon’s. “Unforgettable,” he breathes. 

Gon could say the same thing for the magician. For years Hisoka was in the back of his mind, present but always just out of reach. The urge to fight him, to beat him, had melted suddenly and seamlessly into the need to fuck him, to have him in the most intimate way possible. It had been the heat that had caused the change in perspectives, but Gon’s always been aware of the fine line in his mind between rivals and lovers. And Hisoka has always been his most unforgettable rival.

“But this,” the alpha murmurs, and nips at Gon’s neck; he draws in a shocked, pleased breath, his body pressing itself against Hisoka’s, his hips rising. “This is something different entirely,” he says, his wet mouth against Gon’s throat, his voice husky. “It doesn’t make me want to break you, it makes me want to _hold_ you. To _care_ ,” he spits.

“There’s no love in a bond,” says Gon. “Only physical need.”

“Words,” replies Hisoka blandly. “I need to protect you, if you would rather it phrased that way. Need to make you _happy_.” He sits up, his weight suddenly gone from Gon’s chest. His eyes are hard as flint, his wide mouth drawn in a thin line. “But I entertain no one but myself.”

“You’re a magician, aren’t you?” asks Gon, reaching up to brush his thumb over Hisoka’s painted tear drop. “Can’t I be your crowd?”

“I entertain for an audience of one,” replies Hisoka dryly. “And I do not take requests.”

Gon looks up at the magician, trying to think like him. Trying to reason with someone who acts only for himself, only for his own entertainment. “Does it bore you?”

Hisoka blinks. “Which?”

“Wanting to please me. Does it bore you?”

“It _annoys_ me,” replies Hisoka after a minute. 

“But it doesn’t bore you. Does it? You want to do it, after all.”

Hisoka crosses his arms, looking down at him as if inspecting something unstable, unpredictable. “Well?”

“Well, would it be so bad just to go along with it? For a while? If you get bored…”

“Yes?”

Gon swallows. “I’ll leave. If you want me to. You can forget me, forget about our bond.”

Hisoka’s smile is slow and sharp. “Oh Gon. It doesn’t work that way. Bonds are not something to be forgotten. They’re something to be broken.” His eyes are calm, and cruel. 

It can be done, of course. Chemically, medically. A bond can be erased. But the bite mark remains, indelible. Second bonds are never as strong as the first. Gon’s mouth is suddenly dry. “Would you want that?”

“It is not a question of what I want. It’s a question of what you’re offering.”

Gon frowns. “I’m not trying to bribe you to want me.”

Hisoka’s glance is icy, his tone smooth. “Aren’t you?”

“I want you to want me. As much as I want you. In a way you’re okay with. I can’t make this bond something it’s not, and I can’t ignore what it is. Can you?”

Hisoka stares at him for several heartbeats, eyes cold and considering. Then, slowly, he uncrosses his arms. “Show me how much you want me.”

Gon blinks, confused. Then he leans forward, crossing the gap between them, and perches on Hisoka’s knee. He presses his nose to the magician’s neck, to his scent gland, and takes in the smell of him – icing sugar and old pennies. He closes his eyes and lets it wash over him, comfort him, seep in and possess him. He feels his happiness, his pure joy at the simplicity of their connection, press from his own scent gland. It’s sex and safety and serenity, is the heart of their bond. 

Hisoka breathes deeply, his scent growing sweeter as Gon’s smell relaxes him. As he allows himself to be swayed by his omega. “If I grow bored, you will end this bond?” he asks, teeth against Gon’s neck. “You will relinquish this?”

“If that’s what you want,” agrees Gon, forehead on Hisoka’s shoulder, eyes closed tight. 

“Mmm,” sighs the magician. “Deal.” And, pulling back, he lifts Gon’s chin and kisses him.

  
***

With his pants sex-stained, Gon is effectively confined to the apartment until either he washes them or the new clothes they bought this morning arrive.

(“You could go out naked,” points out Hisoka. 

“Would you like that attention on me?” replies Gon. The magician smiles, conceding the point.)

So instead, they go to Hisoka’s private onsen. 

Gon still remembers meeting Hisoka years ago on Greed Island in a natural hot spring, the magician wet and naked and entirely unapologetic about it. At the time, it had been weird in creepy. Now he just wants the heat of the water and the calm of Hisoka’s presence. 

They strip off their clothes and wash, Hisoka smiling a little too sweetly as he cleans Gon’s back and hair for him, soaping and shampooing him like a puppy and washing him down with a handheld shower head. 

“Will you let me wash off your make-up?” he asks Hisoka, who gives him a surprised glance but shrugs. 

“There’s make-up remover in the green bottle,” he says, pointing. Gon grabs a face towel and wets it, then lathers it with the make-up remover and slowly strokes Hisoka’s cheeks with it, washing away the star and the teardrop. Hisoka closes his eyes and Gon gently washes the eyeliner and mascara off, then quickly rinses the face cloth and washes away the suds. With wet hair and no make-up Hisoka looks older, more mature.

At least, until he gives an entirely lascivious smile and reaches for Gon’s thigh. “Uh-uh,” says Gon. “Protection from now on.”

The magician pouts but gets up and leads the way into the bath area. There are four pools, each with steam rising from them, each a different shape and size. Gon walks down the steps into one that’s lined with different sized rocks; the water is just the right temperature and slightly slick against his skin. 

“This water is really soft,” he says, as Hisoka comes in beside him and sits down on a submerged seat; his strong arms resting on the edge of the pool.

“Supposedly it has healing properties. They bring it in from Azia specially.”

“Wow, really?” Gon sinks down, mouth and nose submerged, and blows bubbles in the water. It tickles his face. He re-emerges and rubs the water off his face. “Hisoka?”

The magician glances at him. “Hmm?”

“Why do you wear that make-up?”

“You don’t like it?”

Gon tilts his head to the side. “I like the way the eye make-up makes your eyes look pretty. The face paint seems very you. But I don’t get it.”

Hisoka crosses his legs underwater, the gentle current brushing up against Gon. “What makes you think there’s something to get? Perhaps it’s just my whimsy.” 

“It’s something to do with being a magician? Isn’t it?”

“Do you know what they call me here? In Heaven’s Arena?” asks Hisoka, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling.

Gon shakes his head. “Uh-uh.”

“The Grim Reaper. Magic takes a back seat to death.”

“Maybe for people who don’t know you. But I do know you – a bit. And I want to know you more.”

Hisoka sighs. “The past is so tedious.”

“But you know all about me. And I don’t even know where you’re from, or when your birthday is, or your favourite food. _Or_ about your face paint.”

For a few moments Hisoka is silent, the room filled with just the soft sloshing of water being filtered. Then: “I was in a traveling circus. A lot time ago. Far too long ago to matter.”

“A circus! Wow? What was your trick? Cards – right?”

“Wrong. My trick – my real trick – was stealing the tricks of others. But to act in a show you need artistry as well as talent. That’s where I learned to paint my face. That’s all there is to it.”

“That can’t be _all_ there is to it. Why would you still be wearing it today?”

Hisoka smiles toothily. “I killed the circus master, you know. He was the one who taught me how to use nen.”

“So this is how you remember him?”

“Don’t be absurd. Why should I care to remember someone I’ve already defeated? I wear the paint for the same reason I do anything: because I like it.”

  
***

They rotate between the pools, trying each in turn. There’s a fridge in the corner filled with beer; Hisoka drinks while Gon looks longingly at the can – if he _is_ pregnant, he knows he shouldn’t be drinking.

Under the water he passes his hands over his belly, closing his eyes and trying to feel a change in him, any hint of something different. 

Nothing. 

“Hisoka?”

The magician glances over at him, damp hair hanging in his face. 

“Did you like your parents?”

Hisoka smiles. “Do you really believe I had an ordinary childhood with a doting family?” he asks wryly.

“It doesn’t matter what your childhood was like. You can still love your parents. I never met my father until I was 12. But I had Aunt Mito to love me and raise me and take care of my like a mom. I want to be a good parent, like her. And because… because I’m not sure I want to be like my dad.”

“Oh? You spent so long looking for him.”

“Yeah. And at the time, it was so much fun – a really great game. I thought that was what he intended. And then later, I started to think: maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he just didn’t care. Maybe he never had, had found me bothersome and a burden. I don’t want my child ever to think it’s a burden.”

They sit in silence for a minute, Gon staring out the window at the setting sun, Hisoka drinking beer. 

Finally: “My mother taught me card tricks. And then she died. That’s all there is to that story,” Hisoka says, and then falls silent as though closing a very short, very abbreviated book. “I’m not parent material. Although any child of ours is bound to be unusual. And very strong.”

“You’re definitely not going to fight them.”

“Do you really believe either of us is capable of rearing a normal pup?”

Gon considers that. Even with Aunt Mito doing her hardest to keep him from following in Ging’s footsteps, he had marched right out that door as soon as he was old enough. Has never been good about thinking about things in the way most people do – planning a route from A to B and sticking to it. He just bludgeons his way through tasks until he achieves his goal. 

“We could try,” he finally decides. Hisoka gives him an amused smile. 

“Much better to try something achievable. Neither of us is good with failure.”

Gon stares back. “That’s why we should try something hard! What’s the point if we give up before we’ve started?” 

“Oh?”

He nods firmly. “Yeah. We _could_ do it. Right?”

Hisoka finishes his beer and tosses his can across the room, landing it straight in the garbage without apparent effort. “Only time will tell.”

Gon’s hands press down against his flat stomach. 

_Only time will tell._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, if you're pregnant you also shouldn't be spending extended time in hot tubs, but as we all know Gon's never exactly had a normal education...


	6. Bloody Ruin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mild dubcon in this one.
> 
> Also, as people have been commenting on Hisoka's back story, it's drawn from Sui Ishida's _Hisoka Origin Story_ manga.

That evening, Hisoka goes to the gym. 

“I wouldn’t ever have pictured you doing bench presses,” comments Gon as his mate prepares to leave, dressed in a skin-tight square-necked tank top and loose pants for working out. After their onsen trip Gon’s wrapped himself in a spare bathrobe of Hisoka’s, the garment imbued with the magician’s scent and making his knees weak and his thighs spread. Eager for his alpha’s attention. 

Hisoka shrugs. “For some reason, challengers are scarce.”

“Maybe because you kill them all?” suggests Gon. Hisoka’s smile is slow and malicious. 

“Mmm. But what is the fun of it without the proper stakes? Rules are so tedious; the benefit to being a floor master is that you make your own. Although they _did_ forbid me to make use of the audience after my fight with Chrollo,” he adds; Gon makes a mental note to find the footage from that fight. 

“When’s your next match?” 

“The day after tomorrow,” replies Hisoka, unaffected. 

“Oh, who’s it with?” He can get the receptionist to pull him the recordings of Hisoka’s opponent’s previous fights. 

The magician shrugs. “I can’t remember. Check the roster.” Then he’s waving as he steps out into the hall, door shutting behind him.

Gon phones down to the reception and finds that Hisoka’s fighting Tsuna, a relative newcomer to the 200th floor. The clerk promises to PVR the footage of his fights to Hisoka’s TV; Gon grabs some juice and a bag of microwave popcorn (Hisoka stocks only Extra Butter; Gon can easily imagine him reclined on the sofa tossing pieces into his mouth) and flips on the TV.

Tsuna has a total of 16 fights on the 200th floor, none against a floor master. He’s a short, heavy-set man with thick dark hair cut in bowl-cut and glaring eyes. His weapon is a bola; as Gon watches the recordings he sees him use it in a variety of ways: to trap his opponent’s feet and cut off his mobility; to rip a weapon out of his opponent’s hand; to curl around his opponent’s neck and crack his skull. He’s also clearly proficient at hand-to-hand combat. His nen ability is hard for Gon to make out, but seems to involve a way of manipulating the bola while it’s in mid-air, changing its course and using it both to trap and attack. He loses twice, and he kills two of his opponents. 

Gon calls back to the receptionist to reserve a ticket; as Hisoka’s guest he gets prime seating. The match, he learns, is almost entirely sold out. The Grim Reaper always draws a crowd. 

Once he’s finished watching the old fight recordings Gon rises, stretches, and grabs his fob. He heads out and down the hall to the gym. Hisoka’s doing dead-lifts, the smell of his sweat mingled with heady alpha pheromones perceptible from the door. Gon steps in and watches, desire churning inside him, his mouth hanging half-open as his breathing quickens. Hisoka’s muscles are shining, his hair damp; he works with dedicated concentration, no music or television playing. 

He looks beautiful like this – not the elegance of his heels and tapered nails, nor the handsomeness of his heavy-lidded eyes and wry mouth. This is a sheer physical beauty, all strength and sweat. It makes Gon _want_ , his hand sliding unbidden down his front, pausing just below his navel, fingers itching. He wants Hisoka to throw him to the ground and fuck him, wants that strong body against his, moving for him. 

Hisoka looks up. 

His golden eyes are bright as summer sun, his mouth open with exertion; the stare he gives Gon pierces him straight through and turns his knees to jelly. His scent turns hungry, Gon’s tongue suddenly tasting sweets and tarnished silver.

Hisoka drops the barbell and runs a hand through his hair, smiling smugly. Gon catches his lip between his teeth, fingers digging into his belly just above his pelvic bone needily, a breathy sound escaping him.

Hisoka’s smile widens. 

The magician walks over – struts, really, hips swaying and slippered feet stepping silently on the black mat floor. He comes right up to Gon, his scent overwhelming; he smells _so good_ , of power and strength and boundless confidence. Gon can feel his ass growing wet with want, feel himself opening to Hisoka.

The alpha growls and pushes forward, pinning Gon up against the wall and licking into his mouth while his hands slip inside the bathrobe. Hisoka’s stroking him, thumb running over his collar bone, ribs, nipple, his other palm catching Gon’s hip and digging his fingers into his ass. The robe falls open, his cock already hardening. 

Hisoka presses against him, sliding his thigh between Gon’s legs; Gon swallows a moan and rubs himself against the firm muscle, panting. 

“Mmm, so hungry for it, aren’t you?” Hisoka runs a thumb over Gon’s lips and then slides it into his mouth, pulling his lip back so that saliva leaks down over his jaw. 

“Hisoka,” Gon protests, or tries to, and the magician laughs and pulls his digit away. He replaces it with his mouth, his tongue sliding in against Gon’s; his kisses are domineering rather than melting, and Gon feels the need to fight back. They come together and break apart several times, like the sea lapping up against the shore, Gon’s ass leaking wetness between his legs. His core is throbbing, hot and hungry; his cock is sending bursts of pleasure through him as he rubs against Hisoka’s thigh. “Mm-more.”

Hisoka pushes the robe off, the warm silk falling away entirely, and pins Gon’s shoulders to the wall as he admires his naked body. Gon’s head is tilted backwards sensuously, his entirety pulsing with desire. Hisoka slowly works his way downwards, mouth licking at him. Over his mark – Gon moans and ruts up sharply against the magician – then down to the hollow of his throat, his sternum, his left nipple, the clean outline of his ribs. Lower – to his navel and then his belly; this close, Gon can feel his breath on the throbbing head of his cock. Hisoka pushes his own pants down, one hand stroking himself. 

Rather than blowing him, though, Hisoka grabs Gon’s hips and turns him, ass canted out and legs spread. He plasters his cheeks wide with his palms, and licks up the slick on Gon’s thighs. The hot heat of his tongue makes Gon squirm, his breath catching in his throat. Then the alpha’s tongue is sliding into him, lapping against his strong ring of muscle and tasting his core. Gon gives a whimpering cry. 

His skin feels like it’s on fire, his fingers digging against the wall as erotic pleasure courses through him. He’s moaning wantonly, letting Hisoka spread him farther open, lowering his shoulders to stick his ass out further in a bid for more. He’s melting with the sensation, hips hopelessly loose and legs wide as Hisoka penetrates him again and again with his tongue. His eyes flutter shut, his forehead pressed against the wall. He’s so ready, so eager for his mate’s cock. 

Then Hisoka is standing, positioning himself behind him. 

And then Gon remembers: the condoms. 

“Shit,” he groans, half-turning, so full of need. “Condom,” he says. 

Hisoka gives him a very unimpressed look. “You should have thought of that sooner,” he says. 

“But –” and then he’s moaning as Hisoka shoves him around and ruts up into him, filling him. Hisoka thrusts in hard and deep, burying himself in Gon’s ass. It feels so good – _so good_ – and maybe one more time doesn’t really matter, couldn’t really matter, and – “Oh _fuck_ ,” he moans as Hisoka pounds him against the wall. 

Hisoka’s hand wraps over his him and catches hold of his cock, squeezing and the stroking it. Gon gasps and slams himself up against him. A moment later the magician’s found the right rhythm and they’re moving together, Hisoka’s deepest thrusts making ecstasy burst within him. 

Hisoka’s pace is intense, his body pressed close, slathering the scent of his sex over Gon. Gon is panting with it, with the speed, the feeling, the taste and smell of him. It’s too much, his body on overload, each thrust driving deeper into him, sending him closer to the edge.

He comes before Hisoka, gasping with the orgasm that slams into him. Hisoka fucks him through it, moaning into Gon’s ear. Then he’s pulling out and turning Gon, pushing him down and slamming his slick cock into Gon’s mouth. 

He finishes almost immediately, shooting down Gon’s throat, eyes narrowed with ecstasy. Gon swallows, then collapses into a sitting position, head resting back against the wall. 

“Thanks,” he says. “For not finishing inside.”

Hisoka gives him a bland look. “Next time I won’t be so accommodating.” 

“I’ll be ready,” assures Gon.

He’s going to be bringing condoms _everywhere_ from now on.

  
***

His new clothes, with some slight alterations, are delivered the next day. Gon pulls on the outfit he put together in the store, corduroy pants and a long-sleeved green shirt, enjoying the way they fit him perfectly.

Hisoka has to attend a floor master’s gathering that afternoon so he picks through the magician’s few books and magazines, wondering if he should make a visit to a bookstore. He doesn’t read much but he has a few favourites, books all the more special to him because he’s never had the space in his backpack to spare for them. They’re rare pleasures, read in dusty libraries during long city stays and at friend’s houses over breaks from travelling. Maybe he could get a library card, he thinks. 

This afternoon, though, he decides to watch the video he noted to himself the day before – Hisoka’s battle against Chrollo. He calls down to reception for it; the clerk sounds strange when he requests it, but agrees to PVR it to his TV. 

It starts out pretty standard, Hisoka and Chrollo standing in the arena as the crowd cheers, warming up with some quick dodges and feints. 

Gon’s never seen the leader of the Phantom Troupe fight before, has only seen him briefly in person during the York New city auction disaster. He’s curious to see his technique, wonders how Hisoka managed to defeat him. 

Chrollo pulls a book out of thin air, holding it while he fights – a nen ability. Hisoka is clearly wary of it, watching from a distance. Then, out of nowhere, the ref goes straight for Hisoka. 

The magician puts him down easily, keeping out of Chrollo’s range and foregoing attacking while he thinks out a strategy. When he goes after the Phantom Troupe leader again, Chrollo retreats into the audience. And that’s where it all goes badly wrong for Hisoka.

The audience breaks up around him, but some members start attacking the magician. It’s some kind of nen-hypnosis, sending wave after wave of human puppets at him. Hisoka realizes the only way to stop them is to decapitate them, and a bloodbath begins. 

Mouth dry, Gon realises why Heaven’s Arena forbid use of audience members. The remaining hundreds of spectators are panicking, most forcing their way towards the door while a steady stream pursue Hisoka. He decapitates one and throws the skull like a missile at Chrollo, his only weapon while at such a distance. 

He tries it again, and again.

Then a head explodes in his hand, blowing his fingers off.

Gon stares at the TV, hands caught tight on his knees, back so tense it hurts. Hisoka looks at his hand in surprise, at the bloody pulp that remains. Clearly the book allows Chrollo to pull out multiple nen techniques, including an explosive ability. Hisoka seems unphased by the loss of his fingers, but Gon’s stomach is twisted as a corkscrew, his breathing harsh. 

Hisoka escapes to safety momentarily, but then another explosion blows his right foot off, and he staggers. Gon lets out a quiet sound of pain, his heartbeat thready, throbbing. Cold sweat is beading on his skin, his body shaking. He can’t look away, blood dripping from Hisoka’s grievous injuries and splattering the stands. 

Hisoka tries to use his Bungee Gum to launch to safety but the audience clambers after him, climbing desperately over each other to reach him. The mindless puppets drag him down, burying him beneath an immense heap of bodies on the floor of the arena. A vast explosion sends smoke and blood splatters onto the camera screen. Then everything falls silent. 

Chrollo looks up at the announcer’s box, disappears his book, and walks out. 

On the floor the surviving members of the audience are crying, screaming, writhing. The first responders arrive and start hauling them away, separating the living from the dead. Someone takes a hand-held camera and descends into the arena itself, capturing the carnage. 

At the bottom of the heap, crushed by dozens of corpses, is Hisoka. His mouth and nose burnt off, his neck hacked bloody, his limbs mangled. 

One of the firemen kicks at him. 

Dead. 

Dead. 

Dead.

Gon’s heart feels like it’s going to tear itself out of his chest, his throat closing off his airway. He drops the remote and falls to the floor, struggling to breathe. The footage turns off, the screen black. His hands are in his hair, pulling at his roots. His stomach is heaving, his body spasming with horror. 

His mate, mutilated, crushed, _killed_. He dry-heaves, only a coughing croak emerging, his eyes wide and his sight dull. 

_It’s not real_ , a part of his mind is shouting, fighting frantically to be heard, but his instincts know what they saw and they’re in full control. 

His heart is stuttering, his lungs seizing up, shock enveloping him like mist and turning his skin cold and numb. Everything’s going dark, the world fading out, only one word echoing through his mind:

_Hisoka!_

The front door slams open and footsteps run across the room. Then Hisoka is there, sweeping him up, lifting his face and pinning it between his two hands. Tears are streaming down Gon’s cheeks, snot running from his nose. He can’t see or hear properly, unable to confirm that it _is_ Hisoka.

“ _What?_ ” the magician snarls at Gon, eyes wide, panicked. 

Gon’s gasping to breathe, sucking in air past his choking tears, his entire body haywire. Hisoka died – but he’s right here, large as life. His sight is clearing, showing him his mate holding him, eyes wild in a way he’s never seen the magician look before. 

“You died.” He forces the words out, fingers digging into Hisoka’s arms, desperate to feel his strength, his solidity. Desperate to reassure himself that Hisoka’s here with him, not dead on the floor of the arena. “He _killed_ you.”

“Make sense,” orders Hisoka. Gon points up at the TV without looking, his head down now, dizzy.

Hisoka picks up the remote and starts the video again. Him and Chrollo, facing off at the start of the match. He turns off the TV and tosses the remote away with a sound of disgust. 

“What _caused you_ to watch that?” he demands. Gon just shakes his head. 

Hisoka sighs and lifts him up, pulls him onto the sofa and holds him against his firm frame. “You knew what happened to me,” he says, bluntly. “You should have known better than to watch it.”

“Still thought – thought you won,” blubbers Gon, eyes closed, head pressed back against Hisoka’s chest. Hisoka’s arms are wrapped around him, holding him close. His scent is sharp, alarmed, but it’s softening now and Gon is relaxing with it. “Wanted to see you defeat him.” And then, as his body starts to recover itself, shock beginning to melt away, “How are you here? You _died_ , I saw it.” He’s seen enough death to recognize it immediately.

“I used Bungee Gum to restart my heart and lungs. Nen grows stronger after death.”

Gon turns, eyes wide. “If it hadn’t worked…”

“Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” says Hisoka, lightly. 

Gon tucks his head up beneath Hisoka’s chin, smells the clean, living scent of him. Lets his body drink it in, find comfort and security in his presence. It takes several minutes for his heart to slow, his breathing to calm. 

Slowly he reaches up and wipes away his tears with the backs of his hands. “Hisoka?”

The magician draws in a breath, his fingers playing over the stretch of Gon’s forearms. His false, rubbery fingers. 

“Don’t lose again. Please.”

Hisoka snorts. “I don’t intend to.”

  
***

Gon has never in his life dreaded a match. But he dreads this one.

He knows, _knows_ that Tsuna is no match for Hisoka. He saw the man’s fights; Hisoka is much faster, stronger, sharper. But still, he dreads. 

He kisses Hisoka before he leaves to prepare, presses his body close and lets his scent speak for him: Ardour, appreciation. Hisoka makes a pleased sound, runs his teeth over Gon’s mark causing him to shiver into their embrace, and then leaves.

Now Gon’s seated in the front row of the magician’s arena, perched on the edge of his seat as the lights go down and the jumbo screen lights up to show the competitors. 

Tsuna, the challenger, is announced first. He emerges in a cloud of green smoke and lasers, bola dangling from his fingers and expression confident.

Hisoka’s heralded by a puff of pink smoke, the audience cheering for the Arena’s deadliest floor master. “The match concludes when one of us is dead,” he says, and Tsuna nods. Gon’s stomach flops over sickly. 

They break apart and the ref calls for the fight to begin.

Tsuna immediately starts waving his bola, the weighted ends flying over his head. Hisoka stands with his hands on his hips, watching. 

The challenger whips his weapon at Hisoka; it flies through the air straight at him. The magician dodges with a lazy bow and Tsuna makes a sharp motion, causing the bola to come flying back at him. 

Hisoka cartwheels to the side, avoiding it again, and after an easy, elegant landing lashes out his hand at the bola. As though caught by an invisible string, it jerks in midair and loses its momentum, the three weighted ropes falling to the ground. Tsuna makes a motion and it twitches, but doesn’t return to him.

Hisoka’s using Bungee Gum to catch and pin it to the floor. With Tsuna’s weapon disabled he walks forward, movements confident as a jungle cat’s. Tsuna takes on a combat stance and they begin sparring. 

To someone less familiar with the magician, it might look like an even-handed match. But Gon can see that Hisoka’s toying with his opponent, playing with him for the audience and his own amusement. He still watches on tenterhooks as they kick and punch and jab at each other. 

Although it was eight years ago, Gon still remembers his fight with Hisoka clearly. Remembers the magician’s clean, unhurried style, the way he flowed like water and punched like stone. He hasn’t changed now, still has the same impeccable stances and forms. 

Finally, Hisoka kicks his leg up high over his head, catching Tsuna under the jaw and sending him sprawling. His cards are in his hand in an instant, and like a dealer at a casino he doles them out, each one flying smoothly through the air. 

They land like knives, Tsuna shuddering as they piece his flesh. Then he falls, unmoving, and the trick is over. 

Hisoka’s victory. 

Gon closes his eyes and lets out a breath. When he opens them again Hisoka is staring right at him, smiling with satisfaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hisoka, worst sex-ed model.


	7. Big News

Over the next month Gon and Hisoka settle into a rhythm with each other, a little like a wire shorting on a piece of metal. Much of the time, they’re separate, individual. And then they encounter each other, and sparks fly.

In the gaps between their passionate liaisons, Gon discovers there’s a library within Heaven’s Arena (as well as a swimming pool, skating rink, and fully-equipped hospital) and gets a card to it. He watches fights in the arena, tries the dozens of different restaurants spread throughout the immense tower, and sight-sees from some of the viewpoint lounges. He takes a tour of the Battle Olympia coliseum and the backstage areas on various floors, shuttled up and down by the quick-moving freight elevators usually employed to move equipment and thus free of fighters and tourists. 

He also explores the city below, meets shopkeepers and street performers, buys himself a laptop so he can keep in better touch with his friends. He sightsees both within and outside the tower in the day, and in the evenings starts to tentatively re-establish connections with his friends that he’s let slip by the wayside. Emails Kurapika, and Leorio, Aunt Mito and Kite. With Kurapika and Leorio he stays quiet about his mark, his mate. Would rather tell them in person. With Aunt Mito he sticks to the positives, paints a happy picture. Only with Kite does he feel he can be honest, knowing the Chimera Ant won’t judge him for his choice of mates.

_Dear Kite_ (he writes),

_It’s been a while since I last wrote – sorry! I guess I’m not very good at keeping in touch._

_I’m back in Heaven’s Arena; I came looking for somewhere to settle down for a while, and I guess I found it. Or maybe it found me. I met an old rival who I’ve known for years; although we were never really friends, I’ve never forgotten him. He’s an alpha, and we just hit it off. I’m his now, marked and mated. His name is Hisoka._

_It’s funny, before I presented I always found him unforgettable and exciting, but also really scary. He’s stronger than me, was a lot stronger than me when I was young. He pushed me to grow, but he also scared me nearly to death._

_My other friends hate him. They don’t see what I see – that he’s damaged and twisted, but that we all are too. I know you’ll disagree but I don’t think I’m normal, and now that I’ve lost my nen I don’t know how to pretend to be anymore. Hisoka understands me, and I understand him. Not entirely, and we’re not friends, but I think what we have is strong. He completes me, and that’s enough._

_Hope everything’s good with you! Write me back and let me know!_

_Gon_

Several times he opens an email to Killua, stares at the blank body with the blinking cursor until his eyes start to hurt. He doesn’t know what to write. Doesn’t even think it’s a good idea to write, really. They’re still friends, will always be friends – Gon doubts he’ll ever be closer platonically to anyone. But it hadn’t ended platonically, had ended with both of them screwing up, and even now it still hurts. 

He wants so much to know how Killua’s doing. But every time he remembers that final night, his body’s begging need and Killua’s stiff refusal, he wants to sandpaper away his memory. He should never have asked, never have expected, never have wanted. 

Killua should never have refused. 

But that’s over now, the coffin of their budding romance nailed shut. Now there’s Hisoka in his life, in his bed. So he stops trying to email Killua and concentrates on keeping himself busy. In the back of his mind, he’s waiting for his next heat, for the conclusion to his uncertainty about if there’s a pup to come. 

But it doesn’t arrive.

  
***

_Dear Gon,_

_It’s good to hear from you. I’m pleased you’ve found a mate you’re compatible with; it’s something all omegas struggle with. He sounds unique, and like a challenge, but I think perhaps you value that? Just remember, an alpha is a strong presence but he relies on his omega in many ways – it’s important to remain your own person._

_Learning that we are apart from the rest of the people around us, that we are different, is always difficult. You’re right, I don’t like to hear you refer to yourself as twisted, but I can see how after all your struggles you would feel lacking, perhaps even damaged. Just know that you are one of the best friends I have ever had, and that you are so loved by so many no matter what. You’re very special, Gon; never forget that. If you’re struggling to find yourself, don’t feel badly asking for help. I’ll come to see you any time._

_These days I have been helping to plan enclosures for a local zoo. As you know my feelings towards animal captivity are not favourable, but I fear if I don’t involve myself the animals may suffer. Under my direction sufficient space and interesting habitats are being provided, and the animals will begin arriving soon. I will send you some pictures._

_Take care Gon, and write back soon,_

_Kite_

  
***

It’s early when he wakes to Hisoka stroking his mark with his thumb, the sky outside still dark with just a faint strip of forget-me-not blue at the horizon. The magician’s scent is surprisingly strong and possessive; Gon can taste it on his tongue, the flavours of icing sugar and silver coins. Hisoka rolls over on top of him, his body warm and firm beneath the duvet. Hisoka sleeps naked and even through his boxers Gon can feel that he’s already hard, hungry for his mate. He’s kissing Gon’s face, his jaw and throat, more sensuous than usual, more covetous.

Gon throws his hand out to the side reaching for the bedside table and the packet of condoms he keeps there. Hisoka is working his way down his body, nuzzling and licking at every inch of skin, covering him in his scent. “Mmm, never mind those,” he purrs as he backs down the bed, duvet pulling away as he goes lower and revealing Gon’s tanned skin. 

“We agreed –” begins Gon, frowning. Hisoka looks up, chin resting on his navel just above the waistband of his boxers, eyes glinting greedy gold.

“They’re no longer necessary,” he hums. 

Gon blinks, stomach tensing. A chill runs through him, followed by a burst of heat. “Am I – do you mean –”

“You’re with pup,” agrees Hisoka, his strong, sweet scent flooding Gon’s nostrils. Pride and possessiveness. 

Gon drops his head back onto his pillow, mind whirling. Hisoka’s pressing his nose to Gon’s stomach, drinking in the smell of his mate, his hands bracketing Gon’s hips. 

Pregnant. 

“Hisoka,” he whispers, overwhelmed with the idea that he’s carrying a child, carrying _Hisoka’s_ child, that he’ll be a parent before the year is out. Trepidation wars with excitement, worry with joy. There’s something amazing, incredible about the idea that together they are bringing a new life into the world. It’s something that all the nen on earth could never achieve. This pup will be unique, will be special. 

Will be theirs. 

Hisoka’s mouth finds his cock, licking and sucking his member, and Gon moans and spreads his legs. Clearly, Hisoka wants to celebrate, and his enthusiasm is encouraging Gon. 

“Mmm, _mine_ ,” moans Hisoka, and looks up at him with shining eyes. Gon’s heart swells. 

A pup. Their pup. A new life for him to rear and raise and teach. Something to love. 

He smiles.

  
***

Later that morning after a long shower and hot breakfast, Hisoka lays down the ground rules.

“You’re not to leave the Arena without me. And you’re not to attend any fights on level 200 or higher without me,” he says, leaning back against the kitchen counter as Gon sits at the table and drinks his juice. 

“I’m not some delicate flower,” begins Gon, looking up at him. 

“This is not a debate,” replies Hisoka flatly, his scent harsh and metallic, commanding: _obey_. Gon drops his eyes instinctively. It’s the first time Hisoka’s ever used his authority to force Gon’s obedience; for the first few heartbeats he feels compliant, feels almost ashamed of speaking out.

Then the scent, and the feeling, fades, and he looks up again. “You could just ask me,” he says, peeved.

Hisoka raises an eyebrow. “And would you listen?”

“To you? Yes. Even if I disagree. Well. Probably even,” he acknowledges.

“There you are. There’s plenty to do in the Arena.” His eyes are cold and hard, indicating that he’s done with this conversation. 

Gon pauses for a minute, conceding Hisoka’s dominance. Then: “I guess I’ll need a doctor. There’s a hospital in the Arena, isn’t there?”

“They are likely not equipped for you; they mostly deal with traumatic injuries. Find a physician and I will accompany you.”

“Okay.” That sounds relatively simple. The only doctor he’s ever had was the sole doctor on Whale Island, an old man with glasses and a bristling beard who looked after the whole island. Since then, he’s just gone to the hospital when he’s been injured seriously enough to need treatment. “Hisoka?”

Those golden eyes slant downwards, the burnished gold of halos in religious icons. “Hmm?”

“You are happy, aren’t you?”

Hisoka blinks languidly. “It does please me,” he admits. “More than I had expected. Smelling your ripening body, the scent of your fertility. It’s _delectable_.” He strides across and tucks his nose in beneath Gon’s jaw, sniffing. 

His scent. Not the idea of a pup, of a child to raise and love and protect. It’s Gon’s scent Hisoka’s attracted to. Something cold slithers down his throat, sits heavy and hard in his stomach. “Oh,” he says, softly. And then, rising. “I’ll go look for a doctor.”

There’s probably a phone book at the reception counter on the 200th floor. He can try there. 

And on the way, he can try to forget his sudden discomfort.

  
***

There’s a fighter registering at the reception counter when Gon arrives; he wanders around reading posters tacked up to the cork noticeboard off to the side while he waits. He’s just starting to consider looking up a doctor on the internet instead when he hears a low voice call his name.

Gon turns and sees a tall man in a heavy white gi, sneakers on his feet and his hands big and calloused. Cropped hair, almond eyes and a serious mouth. 

“Zushi!” A smile overtakes him, low-level anxiety momentarily eclipsed. 

“Gon! I didn’t know you were coming to town.” 

It’s been years since they’ve seen each other, although Zushi has kept up by email, writing regular, formal notes conveying the success of his dojo and his fights as a floor master. Gon’s replies have been much more sporadic, and much briefer. _Still searching, still haven’t found my nen_ , doesn’t take a lot of time to write. 

“It was a spontaneous decision,” he says. Zushi’s scent is curiously absent, just a slight hint of leather and strawberry. A beta: quiet, calm, determined. It fits the martial artist. 

“Are you fighting again? Are you back on level 200?” He looks excited, eager. Gon’s smile fades and he shakes his head.

“No. I think my nen’s really gone,” he says slowly. 

Zushi’s face falls. “I’m sorry, Gon. Really, I am. I know how hard you were looking for it. If there’s anything I can do…”

“Thanks. It’s… it really sucks. But recently I’ve started to get over it.”

“Oh yeah?” Another fighter comes up behind them, Zushi moving out of his way. “Hey, do you want to come up to my place? We could catch up.”

Finding a doctor’s not urgent. And besides, he could use a little normal conversation. He nods. “Sure.”

  
***

Zushi’s floor is 215; his apartment is small and Spartan because almost all of the floor is taken up with space for his dojo. He walks Gon through the tatami-floored rooms, each tastefully provided with motivational calligraphy and calming vases placed in optimal locations. As they walk through the various rooms, including a weight room, gym and lecture hall, Gon feels himself growing calm. They talk about Zushi’s students, his classes and program, about his successes as a floor master and the new techniques he’s working on. Simple, interesting conversation that Gon soaks in appreciatively.

They end up in Zushi’s apartment when the tour is complete; Zushi pulling out a couple of cans of beer.

And just like that, the weight is back in his stomach. 

“I’ll just have water,” he says; Zushi glances at him but obliges with a glass that he fills from the sink. 

The layout of the apartment is smaller and more segmented than Hisoka’s; Zushi leads him to a space clearly set out for relaxing, with yellow walls, two grey couches and a dove-grey carpet with yellow accents. It’s a homey, comfortable space, and Gon sighs as he sinks down into the couch. 

“So what _are_ you doing in town?” asks Zushi, looking at him curiously.

Gon looks out the tall windows at the city below, then back to Zushi. “I thought I’d come back to somewhere familiar to try to find my feet. Try to find somewhere I fit in.”

“You’re one of the best fighters I’ve ever met – even when I was a kid I recognized that, and now that I look back on it, I’m still amazed. You could have a pro career even without your nen. I’d help you.”

A career. It’s not something he ever imagined for himself; he’s always seen his life as an endless adventure, pursuing strength and challenges and amusement. Even without his nen he managed to keep striving, keep driving himself forward. Until abruptly he wanted to settle for a while, and realised he had nowhere left that felt like home. That in constantly questing for something better, he’d lost the security he once had. 

And now? 

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. “To be honest, for a long time, I’ve been struggling. With my nen. With who I am. With what I want.”

“Those are all big questions,” agrees Zushi. 

“Yeah. But at the same time… that is, when I came back… I found a mate,” he says, hand slipping self-consciously to the bite mark on his neck. It’s healed over the past six weeks but is still dark, very present. 

“A mate – you’re an omega?” 

Gon nods. “Yeah.”

“Then your mate’s gotta be Killua! Unless – is he not an alpha?”

Gon looks down at the water in his hand. “No, he is. But he’s not mine. It’s sort of complicated. He had family stuff he had to take care of and we kind of drifted apart.”

“Wow, I thought you two would be together forever; you were so close, and so alike! And so competitive with each other.” 

The water is rippling in the glass, lapping up against the rim. Gon swallows. “He wanted something different. I’m okay with it. I mean, it was years ago now. And I’ve found someone else.”

“A fighter here in the Arena?”

Gon looks up, fingers squeezing the glass tentatively. “It’s Hisoka,” he answers.

Zushi’s eyes widen, his mouth opening and then shutting once. Then: “ _Hisoka?_ ”

Gon nods, smiling a little, mouth tense. “You’re surprised.”

“Did he force you? Did he hurt you?” Zushi asks immediately, setting down his beer and leaning forward, expression intense. “Gon – are you okay?”

“I’m fine. He didn’t force me, and he doesn’t hurt me. You don’t need to worry about me, Zushi. Really. I came back and we met and I realised that there’s always been a tie between us. Not romantically, but – he’s always been in the back of my mind, a constant presence that I’ve never forgotten. His personality is really strong; _he’s_ really strong. And I realised that I want that.”

“He _is_ strong,” agrees Zushi doubtfully, “But…”

“It’s hard to explain. Or, I dunno, maybe it’s not. I’ve always been drawn to him, in a weird way. He’s always been _there_ , just out of reach. And when I had the chance to reach him, I took it. And I guess… I’m not the same person I used to be, Zushi. Hisoka understands what I am.”

“What you are?” Zushi’s frowning, leaning forward to close the distance between them. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not… _enough_ anymore. I’ve lost something I can’t get back, and I feel cracked. Like a broken mirror, all weird and wonky now. And Hisoka gets that.”

Zushi stares at him, eyes wide and mouth tight. “Gon, you’re a great person. Nen doesn’t make you who you are – losing it doesn’t mean you’re anything _less_ than you used to be. You’re not less without it. It doesn’t take someone like Hisoka to realize that.”

Gon smiles softly. “Maybe that’s true for some people. But I put everything I had into being a Hunter, into growing my power and my skills. I’ll never be as strong again as I was when I was twelve. I’ll never be able to beat you, or Killua, or Hisoka. That _hurts_. A lot.”

He’s forgotten how much. Since being in Heaven’s Arena with Hisoka it’s been so easy to focus on his new life, his bond, his mate. He’s kept busy, kept moving, kept close to Hisoka’s enthralling scent. So much so that he’s almost forgotten what drew him to the alpha in the first place. 

“But _Hisoka_ ,” says Zushi. And then, colouring: “Sorry. I guess I should be supportive. But Gon, he’s twisted. And violent. He’s done some terrible things here in the Arena.”

“I know that. I mean – I know what he’s like. And it’s not like I think he’ll change. But right now, I’m everything to him. More than even he wants me to be. No one else has been willing to give themselves to me like that. Not even Killua.”

“I’m not sure I really understand. I want to, but…” Zushi sighs. “I’m sorry.”

Gon shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. I know he’s got a long history, and a lot of enemies. We don’t have to talk about him anymore. Well – there is one thing.”

Zushi looks at him enquiringly, and Gon smiles nervously.

“I’m pregnant. I actually just found out. It’s a lot to think about, and I’m nervous, but I want to be happy.”

Zushi’s always had an honest face; Gon watches now as it cycles through shock, concern, and then to a brittle, forced kind of pleasure. “You’re happy?”

“I’m still trying to work it out. But I’m trying to be,” says Gon, conscious off the discomfort in his stomach, the icy lump of stress.

“And Hisoka?”

“He’s okay with it. It’s his pup, after all. I think he’s proud.”

“I think you’ll be a great parent,” says Zushi after a pause that’s just an instant too long. “Really. But I have a hard time imagining Hisoka being a good influence.”

Gon feels a wave of offense, feels irritable at having his mate criticized to his face. But it’s also undeniably true. “We’ve got a lot to work out,” he agrees. “I guess that’s some of what makes me nervous, honestly. But when I think about my childhood… Ging wasn’t there for me at all. I can do better, and I will.”

Zushi nods. “I’ll do anything I can for you. I want the best for you, really.”

Gon smiles. “Thanks Zushi. Why don’t you tell me about your most recent fights?

  
***

They talk for more than an hour, swapping stories and catching up. They finish with Gon promising to visit again, Zushi making him promise to come by anytime he needs anything.

“I’m okay, really Zushi,” Gon promises, smiling as he steps out into the hall. 

“You’re my friend. I want the best for you.”

He nods. “I know. I’m grateful. I’ll see you in a while.”

Zushi nods and the door closes between them.

  
***

Afterwards, Gon turns his mind to finding a doctor. He decides to forego the phonebook for online postings and searches through several before finding an OB/GYN near to Heaven’s Arena with good reviews for her helpful, professional attitude. He books an appointment with her.

That evening, he writes to Kite. 

_Dear Kite,_

_Big news: I’m pregnant! It’s still a lot to take in, and I’m definitely nervous, but this is supposed to be a happy occasion so I want to be happy. Hisoka’s very protective, but I guess that’s normal. Better than not caring, anyway. I’m not so sure he understands what raising a child entails, but I guess I don’t really either, so we’ll find out together!_

_Sorry this isn’t longer – I wanted to tell you right away._

_Wish me luck!!_

_Gon_


	8. One and Only

His first meeting with the doctor is a near-disaster.

Hisoka accompanies him through the winding city streets lined with big houses and stores into a high-end business area. The doctor, Dr Vale, has her office on the third floor of a big building. It’s a clean white space with brightly coloured stencils of flowers on the walls and new, comfortable furniture in the waiting room. 

She specialises in omega pregnancies, and upon entering Gon can immediately smell that the air is heavily filtered to remove the thick scents of possessive alphas. Sitting beside Hisoka in the waiting room all he can smell is his own mate’s scent, potent and pervasive. It calms the worry in his stomach. Hisoka pulls out a pack of cards and shuffles through them as they wait; Gon flips absently through a magazine without reading any of the articles. 

Dr Vale, as it turns out, is a tall blonde alpha wearing a high-necked shirt and a subtle perfume to mask her scent. The perfume is citrus and lavender; strong, clean fragrances that don’t quite disguise her underlying odour. Gon smells Hisoka’s scent change the moment hers hits him, ratcheting up from possessive to protective in an instant. She smiles disarmingly and remains on the other side of the room, her hands open palm-up.

“I assure you, Mr Morow, I pose no threat. My only goal is the safe and healthy delivery of your pup. While in my office Mr Freecss is safe from harm. I am the only alpha on staff, and I have his welfare as my only priority.”

Hisoka gives her a lazy look, belied by his metallic scent. His posture is relaxed, but Gon can sense the whip-like readiness in him; he’s coiled to strike, his cards in his hand. “Oh? You encourage me to leave my mate alone in your grasp?”

“No; you are welcome to attend all meetings. If you are not able to be present, I have a beta assistant who will be in the room at all times to ensure nothing untoward occurs.”

“An assistant employed by you,” drawls Hisoka. 

“If it makes you uncomfortable, you’re welcome to find another doctor. But most of us _are_ alphas, and in fact many omegas prefer to have their care overseen by someone with authority. I can promise you that I am well-respected in my profession, and in the local delivery wards.”

Hisoka doesn’t drop eye contact, the two of them vying for supremacy. Gon sighs. “She seems nice, Hisoka. Let’s try it, okay?”

Hisoka glances at him. “Because ‘she seems nice’?” he asks, lips pulled back to show his teeth. 

“I trust her.”

Hisoka sighs. “You trust everyone.”

“Not everyone. And I haven’t been wrong, have I?”

Hisoka gives him a long look, then shrugs. “Very well.” He turns to Dr Vale. “We will try,” he repeats blandly, his cards disappearing from his hand. 

“Excellent. We’ll perform a quick test to confirm pregnancy first, although frankly I can tell by your scent. After that, standard screening and a care plan for your pregnancy and delivery.”

Gon nods, feeling overwhelmed. 

“Then let’s get started.”

  
***

They’re there for more than an hour answering questions and running all sorts of tests; the next appointment is booked for a month out.

They go home with pamphlets and a sheet of helpful resources to look at on the web. Gon studiously reads through half of them before his brain feels like it’s going to melt out of his ears, putting the rest on the table to look at later. 

He flops back onto the sofa and stares at the ceiling. Somehow after seeing the doctor this all feels more real, like it’s certainly happening. He looks over at Hisoka, lounging in an easy chair drinking scotch. He doesn’t seem to feel the least bit apprehensive. But then, he’s rarely seen Hisoka worry over anything. In fact, the only times he’s ever seen the alpha flustered has been when his mate has been hurting. 

Gon rests his hand on his stomach and closes his eyes. Deep inside him is a pup, Hisoka’s pup, growing. He feels a flush of warmth, of satisfaction. Raising this pup won’t be easy, but it will be theirs. He opens his eyes and looks over fondly at the magician. His alpha; his mate.

This pup will be the glue that holds them together, that seals their cracks. That makes them whole. 

He sighs and curls up, warm and contented.

  
***

The next day is rainy and Gon decides to stay inside. He’s feeling a little queasy, stomach unsettled, and has a bath and then pulls on his warmest clothes and huddles up on the sofa reading a book.

He makes himself soup for lunch, Hisoka in and out on various errands, eats alone and then returns to the sofa. Hisoka’s phone, charging by the door, pings just as the magician returns with a manila envelope that Gon has by now learned contains his fights for the week. He picks up his phone and even from across the room Gon can smell his scent turning sharp, like rusty equipment. 

“Hisoka?”

The magician waves a hand. “Something I forgot,” he replies, texting with one hand. He glances over at Gon, eyes shadowed. “I’ll be back.”

Gon waves and goes back to his book.

  
***

It’s about fifteen minutes later that he feels it: overwhelming panic flooding through him. His first thought is for the baby, but the sensation isn’t physical in that way. It’s an instinct, not flesh-and-blood pain. He drops his book and stands, looking around. Looking for his mate.

But of course, Hisoka’s gone. 

The sense of terror continues, digging into his flesh like pins and needles, making him sweat and stagger. Hisoka. He needs Hisoka. His mark is throbbing, his head swirling. He stumbles out of the apartment, feels like something’s tugging him along. Follows it down the hall away from the elevator. Towards the arena. With one hand on the wall for stability and one over his stomach he makes his way down the hall, bare feet shuffling on the carpet. 

He reaches the first entrance to the arena and throws open the door. Stumbles inside; the lights are on, the ring lit in searing white that burns shadows into the floor. 

There are three people standing on the platform.

Hisoka. 

Zushi.

Killua.

Gon drops to his knees at the top of the stairs, breathing hard, eyes wide. Killua, who is all speed and electricity, his white hair pointed and his pale hands like knives. Killua, who against all odds is here, really here, in front of him.

Killua, who is trying to kill Hisoka. 

His friend – his _best_ friend – is snapping back and forth faster than the eye can follow landing blow after blow on Hisoka. His mate is doing his best to dodge but his speed isn’t anything like Killua’s God Speed; every blow is landing, each with incredible force. Hisoka’s face is bloody, his clothes splattered with it; it leaks from his nose and mouth, from cuts on his arms and legs, a red oozing mess. Zushi is watching from the sidelines, arms crossed. 

Gon’s heart feels like it’s going to burst out of his chest, his lungs aching and his stomach roiling. He gets to his feet and scrambles down the stairs; all three men in the arena are too focused on themselves to notice. He makes it to the bottom step, vaults over the barrier, and runs across the flat floor to the raised platform of the ring. Killua gives a double-fisted blow to Hisoka’s shoulders and he drops to his knees, hands splayed on the cement slabs, blood dripping down. 

“You _bastard_ ,” Killua is shouting, face white and eyes wild, his expression fiercer than Gon’s ever seen it. “You _fucking prick-rotting piece of shit bastard!_ ” He kicks Hisoka in the stomach and the magician vomits, mostly bile and liquid. 

Gon leaps up into the ring and, as Killua swings in for another blow, moves between him and Hisoka. 

Killua’s fist stops so close to Gon’s cheek that he can feel the heat of his skin. Killua’s panting, gasping harshly for breath, tears of rage in his eyes. He smells of summer rain and ozone, scents that Gon once found enticing, exquisite. Now they burn in his nostrils, the harsh scent of a foreign alpha threatening his mate. 

“No more, Killua,” says Gon softly. “Please.”

Killua gives a high-pitched keening. He’s grown in the past four years but his eyes are still the same, sky-blue and wonderfully expressive. They’re full of anguish now, of pain. “Gon – _Gon_ – he – he _took_ you, _you_ , and –”

“I wanted him –”

“He _tricked_ you,” spits Killua, face contorting. “He took advantage of you, stole you, made you _his_ because he _lives to ruin people_.”

“Killua, it was my choice. I chose him.”

“ _No_. You needed someone, and I wasn’t there, and I’m sorry – I’m so sorry – so let me fix this, let me make it right. _Please_.” His hands are sharp, nails claw-like. His executioner’s hands. 

Gon shakes his head. “I won’t let you hurt him. I can’t.” He thinks back to seeing the footage of the Chrollo fight, seeing Hisoka maimed and then killed. Of the absolute devastation it had wrought in him. “I’d die first,” he says, truthfully.

“He’s not right – he’s a monster, Gon, you don’t belong with him, you –”

“I belong with you? It’s too late for that now. You were the one that chose –”

“I was young!” cries Killua. “And stupid, and – and – _please_ , let me take care of you. As a friend, as –”

There’s a flash of red and black in the corner of his vision. And then, without warning, Hisoka is behind Killua, has pulled his neck into the crook of his elbow and is picking him up off the ground in a choke-hold. 

“He. Is. _Mine_ ,” snarls Hisoka, spitting blood. 

Killua lights up in an instant, electricity flaring over his skin, his hair, his clothes. It sparks and crackles, blindingly. 

Hisoka grins. “Didn’t you know, Killua? Bungee Gum has the properties of both gum and rubber. It doesn’t conduct your shocks.”

Gon can’t see it, but he knows from Hisoka’s words that he must have coated himself with his elastic nen, insulating himself from the electricity. 

And now suddenly the tables are turned, and it’s Killua’s life on the line.

Gon stares up at him as he struggles against Hisoka’s grip, both hands pulling fruitlessly at Hisoka’s crooked arm, feet kicking. Gon feels sick, mouth full of saliva, stomach heaving. His heart is racing in his chest, each beat struggling to pump enough blood, each breath struggling to carry enough air. He feels light-headed, dizzy. Satisfaction wars with horror, thankfulness with fear. The omega in him is pleased his mate has the upper hand, is beating down the threat. The boy in him – the one who spent years with Killua – is terrified. The emotions are twisting within him like a pair of snakes, vying for superiority. He fists his hands and stares up at his mate. 

“Hisoka. Don’t hurt him. Please.”

Hisoka’s face is swollen with blows, blood running from his nose and mouth. With his nen concentrated across his skin to protect himself he’s let go of the moulding on his face; his lips and nose are gone, just burnt ruins. He looks like a grotesquerie, like a fun-house mockery of a clown. But his eyes are full of death. 

“You ask me to spare his life?”

“Please.”

Hisoka stares down at him, unimpressed. “He would have killed me. In this ring, only one may walk away.”

“Please.”

“Is he your choice? Would you replace me, break the bond and stifle the pup in your belly?”

Gon shakes his head. “You’re mine – my one and only. I would die for you. But Killua is my friend.”

Hisoka’s eyes are butter-yellow in the jumping lightning light. “Make him surrender, and I will spare his life,” he says.

Gon looks to Killua, his head thrown back, his mouth open as he gasps for air. “Killua,” says Gon softly, stepping forward. “Stop it. Stop it now, okay? I want you two to get along.”

Killua’s eyes roll down to stare at him, electricity still crackling. “G-g-g,” he stutters. 

Gon smiles. “It’ll be okay. I promise. So just stop this.”

And, reaching forward, he clasps Killua’s hand. 

Somewhere beyond the pain he hears Hisoka roar, hears Killua scream. But all he knows is the agony tearing through him, ripping him to pieces as the electricity courses through his body. 

Blackness.

  
***

Gon wakes slowly. His body feels strange, fuzzy and numb. He can smell Hisoka close by, his presence calming, comforting; a soft cotton candy scent.

He opens his eyes and stares up at the ceiling. He’s in their bed, he can tell by the feel of the silken sheets against his skin, by the soft smell of the bedding. He sits up slowly, body stiff. His right hand is oddly insensitive; he looks down at it and sees it’s swathed in bandages. 

“Not your brightest move,” comments Hisoka dryly.

Gon looks over and sees the magician sprawled on the bed beside him with a book. His face is swollen and bruised, his skin battered. There’s clear tape stuck to his skin holding several long cuts shut. 

Gon remembers abruptly: Hisoka and Killua. God Speed and Bungee Gum; each trying to kill the other.

Fighting over him like wild animals. 

Gon swallows. “Are you okay?”

“Mm, I’ll survive. You had a much greater injury.”

His hands fly to his stomach, his eyes wide: “The baby?”

“The whelp is fine. Your hand, though, is unlikely to recover fully. You’ll retain the use of it, but with limited sensation.”

Gon stares down at the white mitt of gauze that is his right hand. There’s a deep, dull pain there, as though a nail had been hammered straight through his palm. “That’s okay. If it means you’re both okay, that’s fine.” He stares across at Hisoka. “Killua _is_ okay, isn’t he?”

Hisoka raises a hand and runs it through his hair. “The logic of your plan escaped me, but I will admit that after having shocked you, he stopped struggling immediately. I left him to the floor master with instructions to have him off my floor by the time I returned from dealing with you. I have no idea where he is now, nor do I care to.”

Hisoka is angry, Gon realises. With him, with Killua, with Zushi. It wasn’t being challenged that angered him, it was having his prey stolen from him. 

“I wouldn’t ever have asked him here,” says Gon, softly.

“If I doubted that, I would have killed you both,” replies Hisoka blandly. “In any case, I’m perfectly aware that it was the floor master who did, because he admitted it. Apparently he finds me a questionable mate.”

Gon frowns. “It’s not his choice.”

“A fact which I made abundantly clear to him. He’s tried several times to come and see you; on the final occasion I nearly eviscerated him.”

Gon stiffens. “But you didn’t. Did you?” he asks, worriedly. 

“Nearly, I said. Really, your friends.” Hisoka gives him an unimpressed look.

“They worry.”

“Mm. About me. Well, understandable, I suppose. But I will not forgive a second try to take what is mine,” he warns. 

“I know. And… I’m sorry I scared you,” says Gon, slowly.

Hisoka blinks. “Scared? Did I say that?”

“You don’t want me to leave. I don’t want to leave either. And I won’t. So you don’t have to worry, okay?” He reaches out with his left hand and catches hold of Hisoka’s right – their two good hands held together. Pulls it to his mouth and kisses the long, dextrous fingers. “I’m yours. And you’re mine.”

Hisoka looks at him, eyes the colour of a hawk’s. Slowly, he puts down his book and raises himself on his elbow, leaning in. “Your life is mine to steal or spare. Don’t try to throw it away again,” he murmurs, golden eyes watching Gon. “Not for me, not for your friends. Not for anyone.”

Gon smiles. “I’ll do my best,” he says, and leans down to kiss him.

  
***

That evening, he goes down to the 200th floor to see Killua off. Hisoka accompanies him, making no bones about the fact that he’s there to quash any attempt to steal Gon away.

It’s Zushi he sees first, looking distressed; his head shoots up as soon as Gon and Hisoka step out of the elevator. “Gon!” He jogs over, stopping just shy of them and glancing from Hisoka back to Gon. “Are you okay? Is the baby –”

“We’re fine. Just a bit tired,” says Gon, smiling. 

“I’m sorry – I was so sure Killua would take you back, that you’d _want_ him to take you back. You two –”

“That’s all past now,” says Gon, breaking in before he can indirectly insult Hisoka. “I’m mated. That’s not going to change. If you can’t accept Hisoka, then please don’t say anything about him. But I can’t let you try to break our bond.”

Zushi hangs his head. “I’m sorry. I behaved badly.”

“You were trying to help,” says Gon. He looks past the floor master to the figure at the end of the hall. Killua’s standing with his hands in his pockets, eyes staring at the wall, back stiff. “Killua?”

He stiffens further. 

“You’ll forgive me, won’t you?”

Killua turns to look at him, eyes wide. “Forgive _you?_ ”

Gon nods. “I shouldn’t have been so hurt when you left. I should have tried harder to be a better friend. And I should have told you the truth about Hisoka as soon as I knew it: He’s my mate, the one I chose. So be happy for me.”

Killua swallows. 

“Killua?”

His best friend strides forwards, eyes on the ground. Only when he reaches Gon do they flash up: contrition, sorrow, disappointment. “Take care of yourself, Gon. And… take care of that pup.” His hand clasps Gon’s shoulder briefly, too brief for Hisoka to fend off; then he’s past them and into the elevator. The doors slide shut, and he’s gone. 

For a moment, Gon stares at the closed doors. Then he looks up. 

“Hisoka?”

“Mmm?”

“Let’s go home.”


	9. Interlude: Trio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: This was posted with the previous chapter. If you haven't read chapter 8, please read that first!

_ONE_

The door closes. Zushi stands staring at the varnished oak; the door is heavy, high-quality but unprepossessing, like all the furnishings on his floor. 

He can admit to himself now that, over the past few years, he’s been a little worried about Gon. Concerned about the undercurrent of frustration, of unhappiness in his brief emails. Concerned that he seems to have cut himself off from his friends one after another, until it was just him and his quest to regain his nen. 

Now he’s here, in Heaven’s Arena, still without his nen; is plainly battered, broken by its loss, more so than Zushi ever realised. 

And into the cracks in his heart Hisoka Morow has poured himself like weed killer, filling the holes with the poison of his existence. Filling his belly with a pup that can’t possibly thrive with such a sire. 

Zushi fists his hands, the line of his shoulders straight and stiff. He hasn’t seen Gon in years, only knew him briefly almost a decade ago. But he still considers him one of his closest friends, someone he cares about, someone he values.

Someone who doesn’t deserve anything that’s happened to him. 

As a floor master, Zushi could challenge Hisoka. Could confront him, could berate him. But he doubts he could kill the Grim Reaper, and anything less would case more problems than it solved. And besides, this isn’t a beta’s fight.

It takes an alpha to steal an omega from his mate. To replace a broken bond, to protect the distraught omega until he recovers. 

There’s only one alpha Zushi thinks could handle Gon, could _deserve_ him. So he crosses to his desk, opens his laptop, and starts a new email.

To: Killua Zoldyck  
Subject: Gon

Dear Killua,

We need to talk. Call me when you get this. 

Zushi.

* * *

_TWO_

They’ve just checked into the hotel when Killua gets the email. A note from Zushi, who writes infrequent but long emails full of questions that Killua is bad about answering. He’s about to put it aside for later when he sees the subject line:

_Gon._

He opens the note. _We need to talk. Call me when you get this._

A cold mist forms in his stomach, freezing onto his organs. Is Gon in trouble? Hurt? He looks to Alluka, unpacking her things into the hotel room dresser. 

“I’ve got to take a call. I’ll be back in a while, okay?”

She glances up and smiles at him. He hurries out, down the hall to the elevator which helpfully lists a business lounge for patrons on the 3rd floor. At this time in the afternoon it’s empty, and Killua secures a desk in the far corner. Thumbs through his contacts list until he finds Zushi’s number, and dials. 

The phone rings twice before Zushi picks up, his voice lower than Killua remembers. “Killua?”

“Zushi. What is it?” He should probably chat – they haven’t chatted in months, maybe more than a year. But he’s too keyed up to think about social formalities. 

“Gon’s here. In Heaven’s Arena.” Zushi’s voice is strange, harsh. 

Killua frowns. “Fighting?” Does he need money? Is he at loose ends?

There’s a pause. “No. He’s found a mate. And he’s pregnant.”

Killua’s heart constricts painfully; he bites back a sound of pain. 

Gon doesn’t owe him anything. Killua had his chance – had a multitude of chances. If Gon’s found someone else, is starting a family, well… he couldn’t expect anything else. It’s not like Gon would wait for someone who refused him. Someone who made it clear he would never come first. He shakes his head, about to give a nonchalant reply, when Zushi speaks again.

“Killua – it’s Hisoka. His mate is Hisoka.”

A low, dangerous hiss fills the air – it’s coming from him. His lips have pulled back in a furious grimace, his hands tightened to deadly claws. His heartbeat is echoing in his ears, each thump like the tick of a clock counting down to tragedy. He feels physically wounded, feels assaulted. 

He wants to maim, to kill. His free fist tightens on the carbon handle of the chair he’s in until he shatters it to dust. “ _What?_ ” he snarls. 

“Hisoka’s taken him. Gon thinks he’s broken, thinks that Hisoka’s who he _deserves._ ” Zushi sounds anguished, but Killua doesn’t have any mental capacity to spare for that. He’s too busy trying to process the words. His mind is full of images of the fucking magician leering, moaning, fawning over young Gon – a boy who hadn’t even presented. And now he’s _with_ him, touching him, screwing him, getting him pregnant…

Killua’s lungs are burning and he realises it’s because he’s forgotten to breathe. He gasps for air now, an agonized rasp at the edge of each burning breath. 

Zushi speaks again, voice low. “I can’t do anything about it. Even if I could defeat Hisoka, Gon would be left alone. He said you two broke apart, but… isn’t there anything you can do?”

“I can fucking kill that fucking shit-bag clown,” snarls Killua, standing. “I’m on my way.”

  
***

He arranges for Alluka to stay at the hotel for the next week; it’s adjacent to a water park and mall, so she should be able to keep herself occupied. Then he catches the first airship to Heaven’s Arena.

He arrives early in the afternoon and takes a cab from the air field to the Arena, where Zushi meets him.

“You’re sure about this?” says Zushi, as they ride the elevator up. “I mean – we could talk to Gon. Convince him to leave.”

“This is between me and Hisoka. Call him.”

Zushi texts the asshole and they head to his arena to wait for him, Zushi turning on the lights while Killua descends to the ring below. 

Just as he climbs onto the platform the blinding spotlights snap on and cut out the seats, leaving him alone in what feels like an immense space. It’s just as he remembers it from eight years ago, save for the absent roar of the crowd. 

Zushi comes down and hops up to stand on the side of the ring; silent, waiting. Then, somewhere above a door opens. 

“Well,” drawls a familiar tenor. “Look who’s come back for a visit.” Heels click on stairs as Hisoka slowly descends through the seats, Killua straining to see his outline past the spotlights. He makes it to the floor, hops the barrier, and crosses to the ring. “Little Killua. Feeling lonely? I can smell it on you – so deliciously frustrated. You want something that’s mine.” He jumps up onto the platform, cool and composed in a red and black outfit, his stupid hair and his ridiculous make-up perfect as always. He smells of metal filings, of coppery blood, his scent a warning: _leave my territory._

“Fuck you, he doesn’t belong to you.”

“I think you’ll find he _does_ ,” purrs Hisoka. “He would even agree. And really, why complain? I’m sure you had abundant chances to knock him up, if he’s what you wanted. You had years together; plenty of time to get your cock in him. And yet when he came to me he was alone, unmarked. Unloved.” Hisoka taps his neon-green fingernails against his cheek, smiling. “I’ve given him what he wants.”

“You’re incapable of love – you’re a fucking monster in high heels and face paint. You don’t deserve to breathe the same air as him. And I’ll make sure you never do again.” Unbidden, unplanned, his hands grow to weapons, tendons hardening and forcing out his razor-sharp nails. 

Hisoka’s eyes narrow fondly. “Oh? You plan to kill me and claim him? Will you break the bond and replace it with your own? It will never be as strong as mine. And the pup will never be yours.”

“You don’t need to worry about the future,” grits out Killua, shifting; Hisoka’s eyes track him as he moves in a slow semi-circle. “You _don’t have one._ ” 

He activates God Speed, electricity flaring over his skin like prickling frost, like pins and needles. He snaps forward and slams his fist into Hisoka’s jaw. The trash clown is unable to dodge, fast but not fast enough, and Killua dodges left and comes in with a hip-kick to Hisoka’s abdomen. 

He hits him again and again, giving into his lust for violence, his furious rage. Hits him until his fists are bleeding, until Hisoka is bleeding, until they’re a gory mess. 

Hisoka looks up and smiles, teeth pink with blood. “He will never be yours. He will always remember my name, my scent, my prick –”

Killua nails him with a double-fisted blow to the shoulders, dropping him to his hands and knees. 

“You _bastard_ ,” he shouts, throwing punch after punch, blood flying like sweat. “You _fucking prick-rotting piece of shit bastard!_ ” He snaps his foot up and catches Hisoka in the gut; he retches onto the blood-flecked flagstones. Killua pulls back his fist to deliver another blow.

And then, like magic, like fucking _teleportation_ , Gon is standing there in front of the mess that is his mate. Eyes huge and hurt, hands wrapped around his stomach. 

Killua streaks to a stop a millimeter away from him, panting, staring. 

Gon gives him a pained, desperate look. “No more, Killua. Please.” His voice is quieter than Killua’s ever heard it, is pleading. Like he’s the bad guy, like _he’s_ the monster.

Killua feels his heart breaking. Feels years of regret and anger and sorrow welling up like an ocean in such a tiny vessel, cracking him from the inside out. “Gon – _Gon_ – he – he _took_ you, _you_ , and –” 

And now you’ll never be mine.

Gon stares straight back, amber eyes liquid, but still firm. “I wanted him –”

“He _tricked_ you!” Killua bites the words out, spits them at Gon, at his best friend, at the only omega he could ever consider mating – and the only omega he never will. “He took advantage of you, stole you, made you _his_ because he _lives to ruin people._ ” He glares down at the wreck of the clown; Hisoka’s head is down and his breathing is laboured, wet. 

Gon’s eyes are gentle and hurt, the scent of him like elderflower and marmalade, with a hint of milkiness – _pregnant_. He walked out on Gon, left him alone in a world full of wolves, and the worst one possible found him.

“Killua, it was my choice. I chose him.”

“ _No._ You needed someone, and I wasn’t there, and I’m sorry – I’m so sorry – so let me fix this, let me make it right. _Please._ ” He raises his hand, nails glinting. 

Gon shakes his head. “I won’t let you hurt him. I can’t.” He’s still calm but his hands are fisted: determined. “I’d die first,” he says. 

The words land like blows. It’s the omega talking, the one who’s mated, who’s bonded to this fucking bastard. Not Gon. If he can convince Gon… “He’s not right – he’s a monster, Gon, you don’t belong with him, you –”

“I belong with you? It’s too late for that now. You were the one that chose –”

 _No_. He can’t hear the words from him, can’t listen to the choice that led them here. “I was young!” he chokes out. “And stupid, and – and – _please_ , let me take care of you. As a friend, as –”

As a mate? No. He will never be that to Gon. Will never put him second, will never trap him for his own benefit. 

Beside him, something flashes by. And then, suddenly, he’s yanked up from behind by the neck. Hisoka’s caught him in a choke-hold, is lifting him off the floor, strangling him. 

“He. Is. _Mine_ ,” snarls Hisoka, sounding furious. 

The transition to God Speed is instantaneous, instinctive. Electricity plays over his body, in his hair, along his skin. Over Hisoka’s arm.

Hisoka doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even move. “Didn’t you know, Killua? Bungee Gum has the properties of both gum and rubber. It doesn’t conduct your shocks.”

Killua lashes out with his arms, his legs, kicking and squirming against the grip that’s tightening over his throat. He can’t breathe, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, his vision turning red at the edges. 

Gon is talking, eyes not on Killua but above him – speaking to Hisoka. Killua can make out the soft tone but not the words. Hisoka answers in a low, bored tone, the two of them talking as though he’s not even here. His vision is starting to spot, his limbs growing heavy. He’s losing energy, losing air, losing life. His electricity is peaking, the whole of his nen flowing into it, charging it.

Gon steps forward and looks down. Looks right at him, eyes soft. “Killua. Stop it. Stop it now, okay? I want you two to get along.”

He can barely hear the words, barely piece together the meaning of them. “G-g-g,” he chokes, trying to say his name, trying to call to him one last time. To beg him to run, to leave, to go and never look back. 

Gon smiles. “It’ll be okay. I promise. So just stop this.”

He reaches up and rests his right hand on Killua’s. Electricity rips between the two of them, Gon’s body spasming, back arching. Killua stops it, kills it dead, but Gon’s already falling. 

Killua screams.

* * *

_THREE_

The bellow is ripped out of him, an involuntary, unexpected cry from his body – a real, physical pain aligned with the electrocution of his mate. Hisoka hurls Killua away, heedless of where he lands, and drops to press his hand to Gon’s chest.

His mate’s heart is fluttering, his chest rising and falling unevenly. The skin of his palm is already flaking, red and black and blistering. 

“Gon!” The other floor master, the one in white, steps closer. Hisoka stops him with one furious look. He hasn’t bothered to reapply Bungee Gum and Texture Surprise; his teeth show through his burnt-off lips, sharp and savage. 

“Leave now, both of you. Never set foot on my floor again, or I will rend you limb from traitorous limb.” The words rip out of him, raw and rough. He picks up Gon and stands, ignoring the protests of his beaten body, and walks out. 

His mind is wild with pain and panic, Gon limp and heavy in his arms and smelling of burnt flesh. 

He takes him to the hospital, his nen roiling, vicious. It clears a path for him through the Arena; even those who can’t sense nen can sense his bloodlust. 

In the Emergency Department a nurse takes one look at him and directs him to a curtained-off bed; he lays Gon down in it, taking deep desperate breaths of his scent, trying to diagnose what’s wrong with him. He smells the green smell of plants, Gon’s body trying to comfort itself by releasing a calming scent. The heavy milkiness of his pregnancy is still there when Hisoka pushes his face to Gon’s neck. He nuzzles the warm skin, searching for reaction, for reassurance. There is none. 

Mostly what he smells is charred, burnt skin. It makes his own skin crawl, makes his teeth grind and his hands tense. Ready to leap, ready to fight. 

Ready and eager to kill. 

The curtain rustles and a man in a white coat enters, smelling of soap and sanitizer. Hisoka watches him with his eyes, bent over the prone body of his mate and ready to eviscerate the first threat to approach. 

“It might be better if you waited outside,” says the doctor.

“ _Mmmake me_ ,” hisses Hisoka, hungry for violence, for retribution. 

“No need for that. We’re here to help. Can you tell me what happened?”

Hisoka takes in a shuddering breath. “He was electrocuted. High voltage.”

“For how long?”

“Less than a second.”

“Alright. He will need specialised care for the injury, and further testing to determine whether there’s been any other damage.”

“He’s pregnant,” says Hisoka, remaining still. 

The doctor glances at him, then at Gon. “How many weeks?”

“Roughly six.”

“We’ll run an ultrasound as well. If you’ll move, we can get started right away.” There’s already a team forming up behind White Coat, gloved and with gauze and scissors and kidney pans. 

Hisoka recognizes the need to move; understands that he can’t provide any further assistance and that, should things go wrong, he can always disembowel whoever’s nearest. However forcing his body away from Gon is physically painful, sweat pouring down his back and pain hammering in his head. Slowly, like a mechanical toy, he straightens and takes one step back. “Your first mistake will be your last,” he promises, as the medical team inched forwards. 

Carefully, under his watchful eye, they begin to clean the wound and order tests.

  
***

He accompanies the litter with Gon – still unconscious, head lolling on the thin mattress, hand now thoroughly dressed – through the bowels of the hospital for test after test. None of them show anything of particular concern, but Gon doesn’t wake, even when Hisoka runs a finger over his mark.

Hisoka feels unhappy, feels sickly anxious. It’s a cold, slimy feeling like entrails over his skin but without the fun. He hasn’t felt this way in a very long time, those memories locked away long ago and the key buried. But now the casket’s creaking open and as he sits beside Gon he remembers: the thump of boots on stairs, the sound of mattress springs groaning, the taste of cigarette smoke. Kick after kick, punch after punch, bruise after bruise. 

He learned to like it, of course. To embrace, to _enjoy_ pain, if delivered impressively enough. And, naturally, to relish doling it out himself. 

This feels different. Is the kind of hurt that touched his heart, the way nothing has in decades. The kind of hurt that’s deeper than skin, deeper than bone. 

On the litter, Gon sleeps on, face tight with pain despite the morphine they’ve given him. Hisoka watches him, face cold and hard, loathing this rusty weakness, this ancient agony. 

Eventually they tell him there’s nothing more needed than sleep, that the whelp is likely undamaged and that the hand will recover its function if not full sensation. He stands, ignores their nattering and scoops Gon up, and takes him back to their apartment.

  
***

He can’t seem to leave him. Every step he takes away from Gon’s side threatens to open those old, long-buried wounds. So he lies on the bed beside his mate, his face once again pristine and perfect, breathing in Gon’s calming scent and tucking his face beneath the warm line of Gon’s jaw.

It’s a terribly simple pleasure, the warm touch of his mate. But Hisoka likes simple. 

Gon is simple, and he appreciates that like a connoisseur. He knows he will never find someone so simple and yet so fascinating again, knows it and accepts it. It’s why he’s so attracted to his mate, so utterly mad for him. Mad enough to put up with the remembrances of things long dead. 

“The things you do to me,” he whispers into Gon’s throat, teeth grazing the skin. “I allow them only from you. Only you, Gon.”


	10. Trust and Truth

Gon’s never been one to coddle himself, but the aftereffects of Killua’s shock stay with him for several days, his body weak and shaky and unreliable. He collapses once in the middle of the living space floor and a second time in the shower, after which Hisoka orders him to stay in bed. 

A nurse from the hospital comes in regularly to check his burn and change the bandages; a doctor also visits and there’s talk of debridlement and skin transplants.

Hisoka brings him his laptop and Gon sets himself up in bed with his books and the computer. Typing one-handed is slow, but he starts to get used to spreading his fingers like a spider over the keyboard for greater reach. 

It’s a good opportunity to write some heart-felt emails. 

***

 _  
Dear Leorio and Kurapika,   
_

_ I’m writing to say sorry. I’ve been keeping something from you, because I wanted to tell you in person – but also because I was afraid of how you would react. But I think I really need to tell you now.  _

_ Since coming back to Heaven’s Arena, I’ve found my mate. It’s Hisoka. _

_ I know you’ll be upset and angry. I know you feel like that because you’re worried about me. You need to understand that this was my choice, and that I’ve given him my whole heart. Hisoka’s done some awful, selfish things. Things that hurt other people, things that were cruel. _

_ So have I. I’ve always been so focused on following my own path and doing things my own way that I’ve endangered and hurt the people around me, the people I care about. I knew it, and I did it anyway. What does that make me? _

_ With Hisoka, I can be myself. There aren’t many people who understand me – he does. And, whether it’s because of the bond or because of his own interests, he cares for me. More than he expected to, I think.  _

_ A few days ago, I told Zushi. He told Killua, and Killua came to try to kill Hisoka. I wouldn’t let him, and neither would Hisoka. I’m telling you not because I blame Killua, but because I want you to know: Hisoka won’t forgive anyone else trying that again. And I don’t want it either.  _

_ It’s been a long time since I’ve been happy or felt settled. But I do now. I’ve found a place I belong. I want you to be happy for me.  _

_ Gon _

He stares at the words on the screen for several minutes, wondering if he should tell them about the pregnancy. But there’s plenty of time for that to come. He can wait a little longer. He hits send, watches the page refresh and the email disappear with a sense of trepidation. 

He also writes to Kite, letting his real feelings surface.

_ Dear Kite, _

_ Killua came to Heaven’s Arena the other day. I wish I could say it was a good visit, but it wasn’t. He came to try to kill Hisoka and take me away. I stopped them fighting, but it was awful to see them trying so hard to kill each other. To see them so jealous because of me.  _

_ I’m sad, Kite. Really sad. I still think I made the right choice, and that my bond with Hisoka is strong. But it makes my unhappy that Killua’s so angry, and so hurt. He blames himself, and I want him to understand that there’s nothing that needs blame, but… he looked so sad when he left.  _

_ Hisoka hasn’t mentioned him since the fight. He’s happy that I’m okay, but I think he’s also angry that he wasn’t able to kill his rival. I don’t want him to see Killua as a rival; I don’t want Killua to be that either. But I feel like there’s nothing I can do to stop it. _

_ Killua’s always felt he had to look out for me, ever since we met. I know he’s smart and understands people and consequences in a way I don’t. But he also needs to understand that I can make my own decisions. And my mate is mine.  _

_ I didn’t understand before Hisoka marked me how deeply I feel attached to him; I want to be around him, I really love it when he touches me, I’m happy even just when he’s near me. And I can’t bear it when he’s hurt. Killua doesn’t have a mate – he doesn’t understand that. Doesn’t understand how deeply he’s hurt me. _

_ I’m not angry with him. I know he wants what’s best for me. But I want him to understand: this is my choice.  _

_ Sorry to dump all this on you. I guess I just needed to write it down. Maybe I’ll feel better now. _

_ I hope you’re well, and everything’s going okay with the animals! _

_ Gon _

***

He’s dreaming morphine dreams that afternoon – the nurse continues to give it to him, despite his insistence of his high pain tolerance – when his phone rings. He reaches automatically for it with his right hand, knocks it off the table, and then sits up dazedly.

Hisoka appears from the other room and crosses with a lithe stride, his hips swaying enticingly. He picks up the phone and hands it to Gon, who takes it awkwardly with his left hand and thumbs it on. “Hello?”

“GON – WHAT THE HELL?” shouts Leorio, right into his ear. Gon winces. Nearby Hisoka rolls his eyes and takes a seat in the nearer of the two chairs at the small table, long legs crossed. He’s smiling, but watchfully. 

“I guess you got my email.”

“You didn’t think that maybe you should’ve mentioned you’re mated? Much less _to Hisoka_? That’s the biggest news you could have!”

“Well, I was worried you’d overreact. Like Killua.”

“Is he okay?”

“Physically, yes. I think I really hurt his feelings though. I wish he’d come as a friend, not a rival. I’ve wanted to see him for a long time. And now…” All he can remember is Killua’s insistences that he chose wrong, that Hisoka is unfit, monstrous, deformed. He closes his eyes. “He hurt me, too,” he says quietly. 

Across the room Hisoka shifts, his scent growing sweet – not arousing, just comforting; strong and stable. Protective. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, shoulders relaxing.

“Gon… should I come visit? Not as a rival – just to see you?”

Gon opens his eyes and looks down at his heavily-bandaged hand. He doesn’t want Leorio to know about it, to know what Killua did – what Hisoka drove him to. “I’m okay. Really. But I wanted to tell you before you heard it from someone else, like Killua. I’ve been lost for a long time, Leorio. Now, I’m starting to feel like maybe I’ve found myself.” 

“Because of Hisoka?”

Gon tilts his head to the side. He meets Hisoka’s gaze, and while from that distance the magician probably can’t hear Leorio’s half of the conversation, he’s clearly following the just of it. His eyes are glittering like coins at the bottom of a wishing well. 

“Mm, partially. He’s made me realise a lot of things about myself that I’ve never thought about very hard.”

“Gon, if this is about that crap in your email about you being a terrible person because you’ve been focused on your own goals –”

“Leorio. You don’t know the things I’ve done, the people I’ve hurt.” He thinks of Killua’s ruined hands; of Kite’s severed arm; of Aunt Mito and Killua’s tears. “I’ve been really selfish for a long time.”

“You were twelve,” says Leorio, sounding angry. “All kids are selfish; they’re built that way.”

Gon takes a breath. “I think maybe I inherited it,” he admits. 

There’s a moment of silence from the other end. Then: “Gon, you’re nothing like that shitty old man. You’re good and you’re kind and you…”

“I don’t put myself first? I don’t hurt others? I don’t go off and disappear, leaving my friends alone? I do all those things, Leorio.” He’s getting dizzy, limbs growing heavy. “I do them all. Just like him.” 

His hand – his injured hand – feels cold, clammy. His heart feels like it’s pumping ice water through his veins, his body uncomfortably cold. 

Leorio says something irritable, his voice an angry squawk. Gon doesn’t make out the words; he’s sliding off the bed.

An instant later Hisoka’s there, catching him, embracing him with his warmth. He plucks the phone from Gon’s hand – “Sorry, he’s done with this conversation,” sings the magician, hanging up and tossing the phone to the other side of the bed. He lifts Gon back onto the mattress and climbs on after him, wrapping his strong body around him. 

“Mmm, such angst,” he whispers in Gon’s ear, arms wrapped tight around his waist, holding him close. “Are these friends of yours really worth it?”

On the other side of the mattress, the phone lights up with an incoming call. Gon startles, but Hisoka keeps holding him, making no move to pick it up. Eventually, the call drops. 

“Do you have any friends, Hisoka?”

There’s a pause, the magician inhaling and exhaling softly. “There are some I respect; they are few and far between. But _friends_? No. I told you before – I am fickle and a liar. Qualities which do not lend themselves to long relationships. Besides, I get _bored_.” He huffs, breath warm over the curve of Gon’s ear. 

“Friends are wonderful, Hisoka. I never realised how much until I met everyone in the Hunter’s exam.”

“And now they doubt you and seek to break your bond. Can you still promote their worth?”

Gon shivers, chin dropping to his chest. “I want them to understand. I wish they would understand.” His eyes are closed, his breathing harsh. 

“And yet,” purrs Hisoka, running one sharp-nailed finger over Gon’s cheek. “They hurt you.”

“Not on purpose,” whispers Gon. He feels tired, his body heavy. The morphine is coating him in exhaustion, weighing him down. He rests his head on the pillow, thoughts growing cloudy, indistinct. “Just because they care.”

“What worth caring, when it makes you unhappy?” asks Hisoka. But Gon’s dropping off, his mate’s words echoing from a far distance, and he hears nothing more.

***

Gon dreams. He dreams of catching Kurapika with his fishing rod, hauling him out of a graveyard full of open graves. He runs to him but Kurapika is catching an airship, is on board with Kite and the Chimera Ants, and they wave as they fly away, away, away. Beside him Leorio is counting money in a briefcase – “Not enough to buy you; not yet. You’re so expensive, you know?”

Gon wants to say that he’s not – that he’s not worth anything – but a great wind comes and blows the money out of the briefcase and Leorio squawks and goes chasing after it. 

He walks for a while across a dry, cracked earth, the ground red and thirsty. In the distance a tall tower rises: Heaven’s Arena. 

“We’ll find what we need there,” Killua tells him. Gon swivels but there’s just a scarecrow behind him in Killua’s turtleneck and loose trousers, keeling crookedly to the side. Its eyes are the empty black of Nanika. 

“Killua!”

“Take care, Gon. Take care. Take care.” The words echo on the wind as he falls back and back, hitting water back-first and sinking into it. The water is warm, tastes of buttercream icing and soufflés. 

“ _Mmine_ ,” say the waves as they wash over him, pulling him under. 

He closes his eyes and sinks into black, dreamless slumber.

***

Gon wakes with Hisoka’s scent thick in his nose, although the alpha isn’t in the bed, or even the room. The sheets are still warm from his recent presence, the duvet rumpled. 

He sits up slowly; his phone is still on the other side of the bed, lying abandoned. He scoops it up with his good hand and looks at the screen. Four missed calls from Leorio, and five new text messages. He winces and glances at the chat log:

_ GON _

_ GON ARE YOU OKAY? _

_ WHAT’S HAPPENING? _

_ If you don’t answer me, I’m boarding the next airship for Heaven’s Arena. _

_ Gon – I mean it.  _

Gon sighs and slowly texts back: _Sorry, I fell asleep. I’m fine. Really._

He also sees that he has a new email from Kite. He settles back against the pillows and pulls it up. 

_ Dear Gon, _

_ It sounds like you were put in both a dangerous and stressful position. I’m sorry things aren’t working out smoothly for you.  _

_ To be honest, I was surprised when you and Killua didn’t bond; you two have always seemed so close. I can easily understand how he would resent anyone who you did choose. Killua has always struck me as the kind of person who hangs on too closely to what he wants – maybe because as a boy he had nothing to love. Now that he’s no longer the one closest to you, it must be a difficult adjustment. _

_ Still, as you say, that doesn’t make what he did right. I think you’re correct: he doesn’t have a mate, and so doesn’t understand how hurtful his actions were. It’s up to you whether you tell him how you feel or let it lie, but if you don’t make it clear he may never understand when he’s hurting you, and that could further damage your friendship. You deserve to have strong, loving friendships Gon.  _

_ I can see that you would be hesitant to reach out to him after what happened, and that Hisoka might not want you to either. All the same, my advice is to convey your feelings – your true feelings – to Killua. Friendship is truth as well as trust.  _

_ Be well Gon, _

_ Kite. _

_ PS: The first animals arrive to the zoo on Monday. I will send you some pictures. _

By the time he’s finished reading, Leorio has texted back:

_ You fell asleep on the phone? Are you okay?  _

_ Friendship is truth _ , thinks Gon. He sighs and slowly texts back: 

_ I was hurt when Killua and Hisoka fought.  _  
_ Nothing major, but I’m on painkillers now.  _  
_ They make me a little drowsy.  _  
_ Please don’t worry _ .

He sits watching the screen. A moment later the response comes:

_ You idiot, of course I’m going to worry.  _  
_ Are you getting good care? Do you need a doctor? _

Gon looks down at his bandaged hand, the white weight of it. He doesn’t regret his actions, not for a moment. He wouldn’t have regretted them even if he’d lost the hand, or the arm. Saving the two people he cares about the most is much more important. 

_ I’m fine, Leorio,  _ he texts back. _I’m going to rest for a while now. Talk later_.

He puts the phone down and snuggles back against the pillows, staring up at the ceiling.

He still doesn’t know what to tell Killua.

***

Sometime later, Hisoka arrives to tell him dinner’s been delivered from one of the downstairs restaurants. The morphine robs his appetite, but he’s still prepared to try a few bites for the sake of the pup if not himself. Dressed in comfy flannel pyjamas Hisoka picked out for him he pads into the dining area, the magician walking watchfully at his side. 

Dinner is Lukso cuisine, the same as they had the night they met again here in front of Heaven’s Arena, and although it’s less authentic it’s still aromatic and colourful, full of different flavours. And, being finger food, easier for him to eat with his left hand. 

Hisoka eats like a natural, quickly and carefully scooping up scoops of stew and vegetables on his flatbread and popping it in his mouth without spilling a drop. Gon is considerably messier, spreading rather than scooping and spilling food down onto the plate and table as he tries to get it in his mouth. 

Despite his inefficiency the strong, savoury flavours entice him and he ends up eating far more than he expected, helping Hisoka to finish off a roast lamb dish, a plate of deep-fried vegetables, and a nutty chick-pea stew. He feels better for eating, feels calmer and somehow more solid. 

“Your colour is coming back,” comments Hisoka, taking a sip of his red wine. It’s the same burgundy colour as the stones in his earrings today, dusky and deep. Sitting against the dark window showing the lights of the city below, his back straight and his features clean-cut, he looks elegant. Gon rests his chin on his woven fingers and smiles up at him.

“I feel better. Sometimes I go all cold, though, and I feel thin, shaky. I don’t know if it’s the morphine, or…”

“Or Killua’s present?” inquires Hisoka, smiling humourlessly. 

“Hisoka?” asks Gon, sharply.

“Mm?” the magician swivels his wine glass, watching the liquid coat the clear crystal sides, his eyes narrow.

“If someone hurt you, what would you do?”

Hisoka’s smile is like the sun falling on a blade, bright and sharp. “I would hurt them back,” he replies, without pause.

“What if it was me who hurt you?”

The magician blinks, considering. “Should it be different for you?”

“I’m asking you.”

“I suppose it would depend on whether I enjoyed it or not. You’ve hurt me before, in the arena, and it was _exquisite._ To have the chance to see you at your best… mmm, I would forgive you much.”

Gon makes a face, and the magician’s smile softens. “You’re no help,” he says. 

“Trying to decide what to do about Killua dearest? You said your goodbyes already, didn’t you?”

“It just… it doesn’t feel like enough. I don’t think he understands, not at all.”

“Do you believe you could make him? He is stubborn, like you. And he has no reason to want to accept your choice. It has ruined his vision of you as pristine, untouched. I imagine he wishes you two could have been each other’s most important friend forever without ever considering the shadow of your sexuality. Ridiculous, of course. You are no longer children.”

“Do you really think that?” asks Gon; Hisoka raises an inquiring eyebrow. “That he wanted us to just be friends forever?”

“Had he wished to take you as a mate, he would have been explicit about it. Instead he spoke of rescuing you as a friend. But no alpha can steal another’s mate and expect them to be satisfied with friendship. Had he killed me and taken you but refused you as a mate, you likely would have perished from the broken bond.”

Gon feels the heavy weight of anxiousness settling into his stomach, the uncomfortable press of uncertainty. “Then why…?”

“Because Killua doesn’t understand what you are to me, and I to you. He has forbidden himself what he wants, and all he can think is that no other should have it either. He doesn’t understand your need, or the strength of our bond. Doesn’t understand this,” he says, and reaching across strokes his warm fingers over Gon’s mark. The heaviness inside him fades, replaced by security, by warmth. He leans his cheek against Hisoka’s hand. 

“I don’t think I can explain this,” says Gon softly, thrilled by his mate’s caress.

“Does it matter? He is gone, he understands that he isn’t wanted.”

“But I still want to be his friend! Killua is important to me. I want to see him again, as a friend – to both you and me.”

Hisoka looks at him askance. “You ask a lot. Of both him and me. Threats are not easily forgotten.”

“I know. That’s why I have to explain properly. Somehow.”

Hisoka stands, pushing his chair back. “Enough of this for now. If you can convince him, that’s your business. But if he returns without understanding that you are mine, he will become my business.”

***

Gon opens a blank email to Killua and sits staring at it for a long time. He’s full of memories, both good and bad. Of the Hunter exam, of York New city and the Phantom Troupe, of Greed Island. Of the Chimera Ants, and Kite and Neferpitou. Of his lost nen, and the years of journeying they did in search of it.

Of that one night in the hotel room, his body burning with need, and Killua’s closing the door between them.

_ Dear Killua, _

_ I miss you. I miss the games we used to play. I miss the adventures we used to have. I miss the way I could always count on you, no matter what.  _

_ You’re still my best friend. That hasn’t changed.  _

_ But friendship is different than what my mate brings me. He completes me in a way I didn’t know I needed; he’s a part of my heart, and hurting him hurts me too. If things had been different, maybe you would have been my mate, and you would understand how strongly I feel for him.  _

_ Instead, you have to take my word for it. I chose Hisoka, and he is so much more to me than I can explain.  _

_ I’m sad that you’re sad. But I’m also hurt that you came to try to take me away without asking, without understanding. You assumed that I made a mistake, that I was tricked. _

_ This isn’t a mistake. It’s who I am, who Hisoka is. We’re stronger together.  _

_ Please try to understand. For me. _

_ Gon _


	11. Holiday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feeling a bit slower these days; those 2 chapters in 2 days really took it out of me!

Hisoka likes fucking him right after he’s had his morphine, when he’s warm and limp and dull-eyed. Gon’s memory of the act is blurred by the drugs, but he remembers Hisoka’s hands, mouth, tongue skirting over his stomach, worshipping the flat toned stretch of belly. He slathers his scent across Gon’s skin, smile like a scimitar, before lifting Gon’s hips to claim him. He’s not particularly gentle, but he’s not cruel either, eyes riding high above like the distant sun as he thrusts into Gon. 

Afterwards Gon lies in the bliss of his afterglow while Hisoka showers, and he wonders what it is about his dulled state that Hisoka likes. The magician has no trouble dominating him, enjoys clashes of will. And he’s enjoyed Gon’s participation in their love making before, has pushed him to strenuous, demanding sex while moaning delightedly. 

Gon’s left hand slips over his belly, still sticky from his own cum, and he closes his eyes and smiles. It can only be the pup. The pup that’s driving Hisoka to shroud him in his scent and display not just longing but excitement, exhilaration, when Gon’s least likely to remember it. Least likely to call him on his display of affection. 

He buries himself in the duvet, nestling down in it and drawing it close around himself, and passes into a light, drugged sleep.

  
***

It’s been two days, and Killua hasn’t written back. Gon’s getting tired of being bed-bound, of Hisoka looking at him with clinical dispassion when he ventures out before sending him back, or worse accompanying him around like a silent shaming nursemaid.

“You’re not going to be like this forever, are you?” Gon asks after being returned to the bed for the second time that morning, his body growing restless at the confinement.

“When you improve, you may do as you wish. Within reason,” replies Hisoka dryly, standing with one hand on his cocked hip.

“I’m getting better every day! I haven’t had a dizzy spell since the day before yesterday.”

“Oh? Are you asking me to be less attentive? Do you find my attentions stifling?” Hisoka’s scent is metallic, hard as a polished blade. 

Gon flops back against the bed. “I’m just tired of being cooped up in here. I want to go somewhere or do something!”

Hisoka’s fingers play over his hip, tapping the soft white cotton of his pants. “Such as?”

“Something outdoors! It’s been a week since I was outside! I’m not gonna get healthy again if I’m stuck in here without air or exercise.” 

Hisoka raises his hand to run his fingers over the sharp line of his cheek. The back of his thumbnail passes over his lips, leaving a smile behind. “Not entirely untrue,” he allows. “Very well. We will go out. Give me an hour.”

Gon looks up. “Really?”

“Really,” promises the magician.

  
***

An hour later Gon’s dressed in his new clothes, out of his pyjamas for the first time in days. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, boots laced up, ready to go. It’s nearly May and the weather has warmed up; spring has turned the city below into a lush greenspace, plants and trees lining the boulevards and parks are putting forward new, bright leaves. Even in the chill of early March the strength of spring was in the air; it was that that set off his first heat of the year.

Hisoka comes back wearing a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses and a smug smile. 

“Did you buy those just to take me out?” asks Gon, staring at his distorted reflection.

“Mmm, don’t they suit me?” He raises them an inch and winks. 

Strangely, they do. 

Gon hops up off the bed. “So? Where’re we going?”

“That’s certainly a secret,” replies Hisoka, and drops the glasses back in place.

  
***

In the street outside Heaven’s Arena is a cherry-red convertible sports car, the roof down and the leather interior gleaming. In the small back seat is a picnic basket, a cooler, and a blanket. Gon stares at them. “We’re going on a picnic? In the city?”

“I don’t recall saying we were city-bound.” Hisoka opens the door for him, bowing with a toothy smile; Gon gets in and lets him shut the door. A moment later he’s in the other side, keyring circling around his finger. He starts the car, releases the brake, and hits the gas. They peel out onto the street, tires squealing.

Hisoka is a confident driver, changing lanes into dangerously small spaces to outpace his fellow road goers. He steers one-handed, leaning back with his left elbow resting on the doorframe. In the city he’s relatively restrained, but as they head out onto the highway that connects the continent’s hubs his speed increases, wind whipping through their hair. 

It’s exhilarating. Gon’s never been much of a driver; it’s not so much that he lacks the confidence as the experience. The cars he has driven have been old, rattling pick-ups or fumy vans. The sports car is responsive and kicky, pushing him back into his seat when Hisoka hits the gas. And with Hisoka driving, despite the sharp weaving motions and abrupt stops, he has a clear sense of faith. He can enjoy the ride, grinning as they pass other motorists and stretching back as the wind washes over him. 

The day is bright, sky clear and blue as forget me nots and the sun glorious and warm. 

The landscape changes from high rises to low rises to single houses, and then becomes countryside: farms and barns, grain silos and pastures. Finally, as they approach a long stretch of sapphire lakeside, Hisoka veers off the highway and slows. The road downgrades to a single lane and he follows it along past little cottages and a tiny village with a church and a corner store. He takes the turn marked Lake Access.

Part of the way along the paving ends to be replaced by gravel; the tires crunch over it, dust billowing up behind them; it glows gold in the sunlight. There are trees stretching overhead here, tall elms and maples; their new leaves are soft and verdant, the road cast in dappled light. There’s a green smell, intermingled with the sweetness of water. 

At the end of the road there’s a small parking area with a few cars, mostly beaten-up old things. Hisoka parks and shuts off the engine, then gets out. Gon follows suit. 

From the back seat Hisoka pulls the blanket, basket and cooler; beneath them is a fishing pole – his fishing pole. Gon stares at it, at the cork handle, the steel hook, the red float. 

“Hisoka, this…”

“They sell it, you know. At the Arena. Built exactly to your specifications. Every weapon ever used in the Arena is duplicated and available.”

Gon reaches out and feels the cork handle. It’s not slick with sweat and use like his was, is new and gripping. He tightens his fingers around it and pulls it up. Despite the newness it has the same weight and feel that he remembers. He looks over to the strips of blue visible between the encircling trees.

“This lake…”

“I thought you might enjoy fishing,” says Hisoka. “It’s been a long time since I saw you with your rod. Apparently the perch here are _delicious_.”

Gon looks up at him, at his stunned reflection in the magician’s sunglasses. Hisoka’s smile is soft, pliant. 

“You brought me fishing? Do you even _like_ fishing?”

“This is your holiday, not mine. And I do enjoy the thrill of the hunt, even if it’s from the dockside.”

Gon beams up at him. “Thank you Hisoka!”

  
***

There are several docks stretching out over the blue water; Gon picks one with a long reach over an area that’s a sheltered and rocky; good habitat for perch. And, as a bonus, there aren’t any other anglers on the dock. Gon would be happy with the company, but he suspects Hisoka might not.

They settle on the blanket at the end of the dock, Hisoka producing a can of worms from the cooler. Gon baits the hook and tosses it into the water. He’s switched his grip to accommodate his injured hand; his good left hand at the top of the grip where it will do the majority of the work, with the fingers of his right hand anchoring it at the bottom.

“What now?” asks Hisoka, staring out over the mirror-smooth blue surface. All along the edges of the lake the surrounding trees are reflected perfectly, creating a blue-green rim to the water. The air is calm and warm with just enough of a breeze to keep the heat from feeling oppressive.

“Now we wait,” says Gon. “The fish can hear us, so we have to be quiet and think like them.”

“Like them?” wonders the magician, peering down over the edge. 

Gon nods but doesn’t reply, body already falling into his long-remembered fishing pose, a kind of attentive slump. 

Beside him Hisoka settles himself, one leg raised and his arm resting on it, his scent diminishing until there’s only a hint of his presence. He’s concealing himself, disappearing his presence down to his very smell. 

Gon smiles.

  
***

Two hours later and he’s caught four big perch as well as one small one he tossed back. Hisoka is lying spread-eagled on his back on the blanket; if Gon bends he can see beneath his sunglasses that the magician’s eyes are closed. He doesn’t think he’s sleeping; his breathing isn’t quite right for that. He hasn’t once complained of boredom, though, or made a sound.

The sun is passing its zenith; they’re entering the early afternoon. Gon knocks the final fish on the head and puts it in the cooler with the others. 

“That’s enough for dinner,” Gon says. “Did you bring a knife? Better to clean them now so the apartment doesn’t smell of it.”

Hisoka sits up, running a hand through his hair and then propping his glasses up on the flattened top of his head. He produces a playing card. “Sharper than a blade,” he says.

Gon looks at it, then down at his bandaged hand. He doesn’t have the grip or the dexterity for the task. 

“Can you do it?”

“Tell me how,” purrs Hisoka. Gon instructs him on how to hold the fish over the water so its guts spill down into the lake, how to slice cleanly but firmly, making sure to go deep enough to get the organs out. Hisoka guts fish after fish, his hands covered in blood and scales. When he’s done he puts them back in the cooler and bends to wash his hands in the lake.

“And now, lunch,” murmurs the magician, popping open the basket and pulling out paper-wrapped sandwiches that smell delicious: of cheese and pickles, of curried beef, and of ham and mustard. There are two glass bottles of water, and also a box of what smells like brownies for dessert. 

Gon has fun opening all the parcels of food, mixing and matching sandwiches; the bread is soft and delicious, the fillings flavourful, the water refreshing. With four halves of each sandwich there’s plenty for both of them and they try them in turns, Hisoka eating daintily and then licking his long fingers. Gon, with only his left hand, is messier, ending up with pickle juice and mustard spread around his face.

Hisoka’s eyes are shining in the sunlight. He leans in, Gon looking up and catching his look: hungry, possessive. He licks the food from the corners of Gon’s mouth, his tongue strong and hot as melted wax. Gon raises his chin, lets his mate lick him clean, his fingers digging into the old wood boards of the dock in pleasure. 

When Hisoka’s satisfied he falls back, picking up the dessert box and opening it. Inside are a variety of small squares: brownies, but also blackberry crumble squares, lemon tarts and two airy meringues. Gon looks up at the magician, “Are you trying to fatten me up?”

Hisoka smiles pleasantly. “Guilty as charged.” He picks up a brownie topped in rich chocolate icing and hands it to Gon. “Eat,” he urges. 

Gon groans, but takes the chocolate square.

  
***

“Hisoka?”

“Mm?”

The magician is lying down again, his head resting in Gon’s lap while Gon sits with his back to the sun looking out over the water. There are white fluffy clouds gathering near the horizon; no threat to the weather today, but likely to turn to storm clouds tomorrow. A family of waterfowl, the duck and drake and six young ducklings, have taken to the lake near their dock, the ducklings sticking close to their parents. 

“You said this was my holiday. What would you have done if it was yours?”

Hisoka’s sunglasses are by Gon’s knee, his pale, painted face turned up towards Gon, eyes closed. His lashes are darkened with make-up, eyeliner adding wings to the edges. They make Gon’s heart soft. 

“I’m much more partial to city nightlife.”

“You mean like bars? Clubs?”

“Things of that nature. The places humanity congregates to worship the loss of inhibition. Although since you returned, I haven’t had much urge to visit them. You satisfy my lust – for all but blood, and there is plenty of fodder for me in the Arena.”

Gon looks down at him, at the sharp line of his nose, the smoothness of his cheeks, the fiery red of his hair. “I’m glad that you’re happy with me. With us.”

“Did you imagine it would be otherwise? I have been enthralled by you for years. For no other would I put myself out. But for you… I _enjoy_ it.” His yellow eyes open, staring up at Gon. “Why is that, do you think?”

“It’s natural to want to please your mate,” begins Gon, but Hisoka shakes his head slightly.

“My ties to you are older than that. Ever since we met, I knew you were special. That you would be mine, one way or another. To mate, or to break, or to kill. These are the things that matter. To achieve them, I would go to any length, shatter any barrier, kill any foe.”

Gon feathers the fingers of his good hand through Hisoka’s hair, following its flow back away from his face. “Why do you care so much?”

“Care?” Hisoka blinks. “You believe I feel for you, treasure you?”

Gon thinks of his early-morning kisses, of the touch of his hands against the smoothness of Gon’s belly, of the way he rubs his scent across Gon’s skin. “I think sometimes it’s hard to see what’s in front of us,” he replies. “Especially when you’re not used to listening to your heart.”

“The heart is an organ, nothing more. Its purpose is to pump blood, not to chain me to others.”

Gon runs his thumb down the side of Hisoka’s face, his nail passing smoothly over the porcelain skin. He can see the warmth in his mate’s eyes, see the satisfaction. “You don’t have to believe it,” he says. “If you don’t want to, that’s okay.”

Hisoka snorts. 

“But you brought me out here, you found something I could do, something I would enjoy. The old Hisoka wouldn’t have done that. Your eyes are softer now.”

“Don’t believe me changed, Gon, or you will be unpleasantly surprised one of these days.” He smiles up at him, an ugly, smug smile.

Gon leans forward slightly and reaches out. Rests his bandaged hand atop Hisoka’s heart. “It’s my choice who to believe in,” he answers.

  
***

They pack up and head back to the city not long afterwards, the sun beginning to dip low in the sky. Gon falls asleep in the car, the long day and the heat of the sun sapping his strength.

He wakes when Hisoka shakes his shoulder; they’re back at the Arena. He stretches and blinks tired eyes, getting out and following the magician into the immense tower.

Back in the apartment he tucks the fishing rod away in the spare bedroom, where he’s stored a few of his books and other odds and ends that don’t fit in the spacious emptiness of Hisoka’s room. Then he takes off his boots and, under Hisoka’s watchful eye, returns to bed. He powers up his laptop and opens his emails.

There’s one from Killua. 

He stares at the bolded email link for almost a minute, shocked and a little uncertain. Finally, he clicks it open and reads so quickly the words blur into each other.

_Gon,_

_When I was young, in my family there were only two kinds of people. People who were older than me who were threats, and people who were younger than me who I was supposed to take care of._

_When I met you, I knew you weren’t a threat. And as we became friends, I realised that that meant you had to be someone for me to protect. You were always so easy to read, so trusting. Precious but naïve. Someone who needed to be guided, guarded._

_I guess I never stopped thinking that way. I saw the impact of your bad decisions, saw how much they hurt you. And I decided that it was my job to protect you from yourself._

_But that’s not my job. It never was. You don’t belong to me, and you never will. Your decisions are yours, even if I – even if everyone disagrees with them. Otherwise you wouldn’t be you. _

_I’m sorry I’ve been so dumb for so long. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you._

_I’m sorry I hurt you. So, so sorry._

_I won’t try to see you if you and Hisoka don’t want that. But if you ever need me – if you ever want anything from me – call me. Anytime._

_Killua_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sale of the fishing rod in the Arena comes from HxH: The Last Mission.
> 
> Also: but don't you think Hisoka would look terribly hot in aviators?


	12. Wheel of Fate

Time passes. The bandage on Gon’s hand is downgraded from a swaddling mitt to a thinner wrapping that frees his fingers and covers just his palm. The morphine is stopped. The visits to his doctor show, for the first time, the beating of the heart that’s deep inside him.

At fifteen weeks Dr Vale performs an ultrasound and shows him the image of the pup, all grey limbs and white bone; she points out the skull, the line of its spine, a tiny foot. Gon stares, captivated, at the fragile life inside his womb. Even Hisoka glances at the screen, eyes sharp and watchful. 

“So far everything looks good,” she says. “Healthy growth on par with the milestones for this stage.” 

Gon relaxes muscles he hadn’t realised he was tensing, head falling back against the bed. 

“Do you want to know?” she asks, pushing the wand over his belly. There’s hardly even a curve there yet, little outside evidence of his pregnancy.

Gon blinks. “Know what?”

“The sex of the baby,” she replies, smiling. 

He looks at the screen; even with her guidance he still can hardly make out any details there, can’t imagine what it is she sees to tell her if it’s a boy or a girl. “Is it important?” he asks, feeling out of his depth.

“Some people like to plan with it in mind. Others prefer a surprise. It’s entirely your choice.”

Gon glances at Hisoka, who is looking down at his nails, running his thumbnail under the power blue polish on the index finger and flaking it off. He seems unconcerned, uninterested. 

Gon wonders if Ging made this decision, if he knew the pup in his belly would be a boy, would be his son, would be Gon. And if so, so what?

He’s always lived in the moment, rarely looking forward. It’s what Hisoka likes about him, what for good or bad has brought him here. “I’d rather not know,” he says.

  
***

“Hisoka, have you ever met Ging?” he asks his mate that night after dinner, Hisoka building a card house on the coffee table and Gon reading an announcement for the opening of a local branch of Biscuit’s Massage Parlour in the paper.

The magician’s eyes rise over the precariously stacked cards, gleaming gold like the eastern sun. “No. I once made an attempt, but it was not successful.”

Gon blinks, surprised. “Really? Why?”

Hisoka’s lips curl slowly upwards, like a morning glory opening at the sun’s touch. “Because of you. I wanted to know what man could birth a child such as you, and not care about his pup’s fate. I was certain he would be fascinating.”

Gon’s hands fall from the newspaper, letting it rustle down into his lap. “You tried to see Ging during the Chairman Election?”

“Mmm. But he failed to turn up, and after that I had business to take care of. I’ve never had the opportunity since, sadly. I’ve heard his nen control is _exquisite_.” Hisoka glances back at his card house as if debating his next move, as if it weren’t entirely formulaic. “Why? Were you entertaining the notion of introducing me to him?”

“Introduce you to Ging?” Gon smiles, but it doesn’t have his usual energy. “I don’t think he would care. He’s never wanted to be a part of my life other than the role of a distant star to chase.”

“And that distance let you grow wild and untamed. A favour, perhaps?”

“My whole life, he’s been a picture on the wall. I met him, after the Election. He was… well, nice but awkward, happy – but not overwhelmed. I told him all about myself, and he listened. And he told me all he had ever cared about was searching for the next mystery, the next unknown, the next challenge.”

“Blunt,” comments Hisoka. “But you were young.”

“I understood. At the time, I mean, I thought I did. Adventure was all I wanted, too. But…”

Hisoka raises a narrow eyebrow. “But?”

Gon turns his face up to the magician, eyes wide, mouth uncertain. He rests a hand over his stomach, feels the smoothness of the slight curve there. “I can feel it already, my tie to this pup. It’s special to me in a way nothing else has ever been. With everything else, it’s been easy come, easy go. I’ve cared deeply, but I’ve never held onto anything too tightly. But I want to hold onto it.” He draws his knees up, curling inward. His eyes are resting on Hisoka. “Didn’t Ging feel the same for me? Did he leave me behind anyway? Or did he stop caring – and will I too?”

The idea scares him. That Hisoka and he could simply grow bored of a child, leave it all alone like Killua’s family left Alluka. Wanting for nothing, but utterly unloved. 

With a flick of his finger, Hisoka knocks over his card house, cards spilling over the table and floor. He bends to scoop them up, assembling them into a pack. “Without him here to ask, we certainly can’t know. But I do dally in fortune telling,” he says, his smile toothy. “Perhaps you would like to ask the cards?” 

He shuffles them between his hands with a preternatural ease; he’s been doing card tricks since he was a boy, he had said, since before his mother died. They’re the only thing she left him. Gon dips his chin slightly, huddled up behind his knees. He watches the cards flow back and forth in a white and red river. “Okay.”

Hisoka finishes shuffling the cards and puts them in a stack on the coffee table between them, pushing them across with his extended fingers. “Cut the deck and replace the bottom half on the top,” he instructs; Gon does as he’s told. “Now draw one card but don’t look at it.”

Gon takes the card off the top and puts it face-down on the table. Hisoka pulls the rest of the deck back to himself and deals them out in a complex shape on the table like an elaborate cross. He looks up, eyes like beaten gold. “What question would you have me answer?”

Gon swallows, staring down at Hisoka’s hand, the fingertips resting on the edge of the coffee table beside the bottom-most card. “Did Ging stop loving me?” he asks, quietly. 

Hisoka flips the middle-most card; Jack of Clubs. “That’s you; strong and loyal but impetuous. The one who has power over you…” He flips the card above; King of Diamonds. “Your father, he’s important to you, but perhaps not vice-versa. The one you have power over…” he flips the card below the Jack; Ace of Spades. Hisoka’s eyebrows rise.

“Hisoka?”

He looks up, smiling. “The Grim Reaper,” says the magician.

“You?”

He bows slightly. “So the cards say. Now: Your feelings towards your father,” he flips the card diagonally to the right of the Jack and the King; Two of Diamonds. “Innocent respect, unbroken bonds. Your father’s feelings towards you…” he flips the card diagonally to the left of the Jack and the King; Jack of Spades. He taps it with his thumbnail. “Maverick courage, doubtful responsibility.”

“What does that mean?”

Hisoka glances up, back bent low so that his head is lower than Gon’s. His posture and expression remind Gon of a lion looking up from a watering hole: inquisitive and carelessly confident. “He intends no malice or pain, but he often fails in his responsibilities. His flaws are not due to a lack of courage, but rather his attention span. He doesn’t see himself as tied to you, although he isn’t distancing himself from you either. You remain in his heart, although I can’t say where.” 

Gon stares down at the cards, at the picture of the knave with its staff. _Doubtful responsibility_ seems to sum Ging up pretty well. Finally after a moment he raises his eyes. “What about you and me? What do they say about us?”

Hisoka flips the card to the bottom right of the Jack of Clubs. It’s the Two of Hearts. “Your feelings to me: Blooming romance, unblemished devotion.” 

Gon flushes slightly; if the magician sees, he makes no sign. He reaches out and flips over the bottom left card. Six of Spades. “Dangerous passion, jealous possession.”

“Is that all really true, or are you just making it up?” The reading seems far too accurate, too influenced by reality. 

Hisoka smiles. “You’ll just have to trust me, won’t you?” he draws.

Gon looks down at the card closest to him, outside the pattern Hisoka laid down. “What’s this one?”

“Mm. Your relationship to the one who isn’t yet present.”

Gon reaches out slowly and turns the card over. Ace of Hearts. He brushes his fingers over the smooth cardboard heart. 

“Unconditional love,” says Hisoka softly, his voice like liquid fire. 

“It would be nice if it were all true,” says Gon, looking down at the revealed cards. 

It would be nice.

  
***

Everything goes swimmingly up to the halfway mark. Gon hardly experiences any morning sickness or other symptoms, is growing slow but steadily, and starts to look for pants with elastic waists.

The first time he feels the baby kick he stops abruptly, awkwardly on the middle of the sidewalk. He and Hisoka are out looking for some scotch Hisoka wanted that they don’t stock in the Arena. Hisoka notices his absence immediately and turns back, expression curious.

Gon puts a hand to his belly, to the roundness blossoming there. “I felt it,” he says, awed. And then, smiling, “Hisoka, I felt it!”

The magician merely smiles, a small, prideful twitch of his lips. 

Shortly after 20 weeks, though, the first of the tests come back with slightly concerning results. 

“High blood pressure,” Dr Vale tells him, after measuring it twice. “It might just be stress, but we need to watch it. I’ll lend you a machine that will take it at home, and you can monitor it over the next week; we’ll set up a follow-up appointment.”

“What happens if it is high?”

“If it remains high, it’s a sign of pre-ecclampsia. There are other tests we can perform next week too.”

“And if he has this disease?” asks Hisoka, arms crossed, from the foot of the exam table. 

“It’s one of the more common conditions in pregnancy, and we can manage it. But it does increase the risk both to Mr Freecss and the child. If it grows more severe it can result in seizures and bleeding, and early separation of the placenta. These are all dangerous for both of them.”

Something cold and slimy curls in Gon’s gut: worry. “What will happen to me?”

She smiles. “We’ll take good care of you, Mr Freecss. If your condition does progress, you may need to start bed rest. The worst case scenario would be the early delivery of the child. But it’s too early to be worrying about that. Let’s just monitor the situation for now, and we can discuss treatment options if and when it comes to that.”

Gon nods. “Okay.”

At the end of the table, Hisoka looks less convinced.

  
***

Hisoka seems upset that he can’t detect any scent of anything wrong. Rather than allowing Gon to use the blood pressure monitor the doctor sent them home with, he pins his mate to the wall and runs his nose over his body from tip to toe, seeking out some evidence of ill health.

“You’re perfectly healthy,” he says, taking the boxed monitor from Gon and tossing it across the room where it lands with a dull thump. “No trace of this blood pressure disorder.”

“Maybe it’s something you can’t smell?” says Gon, glancing after the box.

Hisoka stares down at him, tall and strong, his scent metallic. “Do you doubt me?”

Gon shakes his head slowly. “No, but you’re not a doctor.”

Hisoka’s hands tighten on his shoulders, nails digging into his back. “I know how to take care of what is mine,” he replies. “I won’t abide another taking my place.”

“She’s trying to help.”

Hisoka leans forward until his forehead is against Gon’s, their eyes only centimeters apart. His breath is hot on Gon’s face, his smell like metal siding in the cruel desert sun. “She is trying to plant a seed of fear in you, to make you dependant on her. But she _will not have you_.” His voice drops to a growl, his nails piecing Gon’s skin; he squirms under the alpha’s grip. 

“Hisoka – I don’t think –”

“It is not your decision,” snaps Hisoka, drawing away suddenly. “There is nothing wrong with you. You may keep the regular appointments. No others.” 

Gon slumps against the door, staring as Hisoka strides away, his shoulders high and tense. 

It’s only later, when the magician goes out to arrange dinner, that he retrieves the blood pressure monitor and secrets it away in the spare room.

  
***

As Hisoka orders, he doesn’t keep the appointment with Dr Vale the next week, telling the receptionist he’ll be out of town and will make the next one scheduled in a month. In the meantime he checks his pressures when he remembers; according to what the doctor told him and the internet’s guidance, they’re all high.

He doesn’t tell Hisoka. 

When they return for his next visit at 6 months, Dr Vale runs more tests – this time on his urine as well as his blood pressure. The pressures are higher than they were before. “I won’t have the results back on the other tests until tomorrow, but based on this you should start reducing your exercising and start taking a daily aspirin dose. If your pressures continue high, you may have to start more rest. We need to monitor this regularly. I want to see you every two weeks.”

Gon glances at Hisoka, who gives him a flat look in return that he knows is a denial. 

“I think I need to stay with monthly appointments,” he says carefully. “I’m really busy, and it’s hard to get here, and –”

“Mr Freecss, nothing is more important than your health. And your busy schedule may be contributing to your symptoms. You need to cut back and relax. And you need regular monitoring.”

“We will do what we think is best,” cuts in Hisoka for the first time, his eyes hard. 

For a moment Gon has the sense that he’s been forgotten. Hisoka and Dr Vale seem almost to grow taller, the two staring at each other with expressionless faces but flashing eyes. The scent in the room is hard on his nose, sharp burning citrus and rusted iron. 

“This is a serious condition, Mr Morow. It can kill – both omega and pup. Regular monitoring and an agile response are key to ensuring a successful delivery.”

“You underestimate Gon’s strength. And my determination,” drawls Hisoka.

“This has nothing to do with strength or stamina. I know Mr Freecss is very fit, but even the healthiest people can develop pre-ecclampsia – or eclampsia. And they can die from it. This is not a question of his resiliency. And you would be more than irresponsible if you forbid him to see me, you would be deliberately harming him.”

In an instant Hisoka’s cards are in his hands, his scent so strong that Gon presses himself inwards, trying to make himself small, unthreatening. 

Dr Vale stares back, her eyes snapping. She may be a strong alpha, but physically she’s absolutely no match for Hisoka. He could kill her with a single strike. 

“Will you challenge the one trying to help your mate?” she growls, voice low and rough. 

“He needs no help other than mine. Needs no one other than me.”

“You took him to have his hand treated, didn’t you? How is this different?”

Hisoka’s eyes are heavy-lidded, but there’s no sloth there. He’s ice-cold with anger, his rage palpable. “You compare a visible wound to an undetectable disorder?”

“It’s not undetectable – you’ve seen his blood pressure scores, and if I’m right there will be more proof: protein in his urine. Go to any doctor you want, read any article on the internet; they’ll all agree with me. His health is at risk.”

“You talk to me of blood and piss, as though I can’t tell the signs of illness, of sickening. I have seen more men expire – and at my hand – than you ever will. He is in no danger. He will return in a month, as scheduled. That is all.” Hisoka looks to Gon. Fearing bloodshed he gets up, pulling away from the doctor. 

“Thanks Dr Vale. I’ll see you later.”

Under Hisoka’s watchful eyes he slips off the exam table and out the door.

  
***

At home Hisoka sits alone in a chair staring out at the city below, while Gon huddles on the couch. Even unable to sense nen Gon can still sense killing intent, and the room is stifling with it. Aware that every move, every rustle of his clothing draws Hisoka’s attention – and his ire – Gon sits still, willing himself invisible.

After almost an hour the magician stands. His eyes are wild, his mouth a long, thin line. He stalks over to Gon and kneels in front of him. He reaches out and rips the front of Gon’s shirt, revealing his swollen belly. Gon makes a low sound of pleading – appealing to their bond, to Hisoka’s protective instinct. 

Hisoka presses his nose to Gon’s skin, taking in the smell of him. He presses his hands over the roundness of his body, the points of his nails drawing over Gon’s flesh with an almost-silent whisper. Slowly Hisoka’s shoulders relax, his eyes calming, then closing. “There is no sickness here,” he says, and Gon wants to believe him. Wants it so much. 

Hisoka’s eyes slide open, heavy-lidded and burnished gold. He looks up at Gon, his chin resting on his stomach. “I told you before: you live or die by my hand alone. Your fate is my whim. You listen to me, not to any other.”

Gon looks down at him, Hisoka so severe, and in Gon’s eyes, so desperate. He reaches down and takes Hisoka’s hands. 

“It’s not me I’m scared for. It’s the pup,” he says. Hisoka was right – he’s strong and resilient. He’ll be fine. But this tiny life inside him is so fragile, so precious. 

“Death itself will not pass me,” replies Hisoka roughly. “Do not doubt me.”

“Okay,” says Gon, softly, pressing Hisoka’s hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roughly 3 chapters left to go...


	13. Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucky 13...

Unsurprisingly, there are no baby stores in Heaven’s Arena. Although children often attend the matches and learn a morbid thirst for violence at their parents’ knees, babies are unwelcome. 

Hisoka is uninterested in shopping for the pup, but as the weeks wear on and Gon enters his seventh month feeling already unstable and enormous, the nesting instinct begins to kick in. The maids who clean their apartment begin to get on his nerves, the presence of strange presences and scents in his home grating. He buys new bedding for their large bed, replacing Hisoka’s sensuous silken sheets with warm, comfortable flannel that’s soft against his skin. And he starts to become distressed at their lack of preparedness for this baby. The spare room that’s to become the baby’s is white and empty save for a double bed and a dark wood dresser. He wants fun colours and stuffed toys, a thick plush carpet and a bassinette, baby books and diapers. The soft scents of talcum and milk soap, gentle and tender. 

Day by day his unhappiness rubs roughly against Hisoka, the magician growing irritable in his presence, until finally one Monday he throws down the newspaper he’s reading. “ _What_ is it you want?” he growls to Gon, who is standing at the window staring hungrily at the city below. 

Gon turns, hands linked beneath his belly. “We need to get ready. I want to make the baby’s room. It needs somewhere safe, somewhere fun.”

“Home décor?” asks Hisoka. 

“You don’t have to help. But I want to do this. I’m going to do this,” he says, confidently. 

“Oh?”

Gon nods. “I can ask Zushi to help, and we can get everything delivered.”

Hisoka’s lip curls in disapproval. “You would ask your floor master friend to plan for my apartment? My pup?”

“Our apartment, and our pup,” replies Gon. “Unless you’d rather help…?”

Hisoka looks at him, eyes narrow and bright. Gon doesn’t back down, holds his eyes and stares back evenly. “Very well,” he says slowly after a minute. “I will come. But don’t dawdle.”

Gon smiles.

  
***

He’s checked the internet for stores and has found that there’s one large one nearby that stocks everything they could need, from clothes and toys to paint and stencils.

His clothes – new, cheaper clothes for limited wear, with expanded waists and elastic – don’t fit him well and draw attention to the bulge of his belly. The stares he receives make him a little proud, but also uncomfortable – he hasn’t spent much time outside in company, hasn’t grown used to the attention of others. Hisoka walks close beside him, his heeled shoes tapping on the pavement.

The store is large and colourful and filled with fun and softness – with pillows and stuffed animals and quilts, with heaps of little baby outfits and bibs and blankets. Gon’s anxiety relaxes the moment he steps in the door: this is where he needs to be.

He starts immediately looking through little pastel onesies and shirt-and-trouser combinations, delighted by their tiny sizes. Then his attention is caught by a display of nautical-themed soft toys, whales and striped fish and sea stars. Then there are cribs and bassinettes, rocking chairs and footrests. He glides through all of it, thrilled and at home, imagining this and that back in the apartment.

A low cough reminds him suddenly of his mate, and he turns to find Hisoka watching him with a dry stare from near the door. He flushes and trots back to him, some toys and clothes in his arms. “Isn’t it great here? I wish we’d had this kind of store on Whale Island. It’s so much fun!”

“Mm, I doubt you would have enjoyed it as a 10 year-old,” replies Hisoka. “I advise you to begin choosing any furniture you need; my patience is not indefinite.”

Gon nods and shoves his armful of items at Hisoka, who catches them awkwardly with an unimpressed look. Gon flags down a salesgirl and takes her over to the open part of the floor that’s displaying cribs and bassinettes, change tables and feeding chairs. He picks out a sturdy bassinette for night-time as well as a little lightweight cradle that can be moved between rooms as he moves around the apartment, and a rocking chair for himself, his back already getting sore from carrying so much weight low on his front. Since the baby will outgrow the bassinette quickly he also gets a larger crib that can transition to a bed as the child grows. The girl tells him that no pillows or blankets should be used in the bed when the baby is young for risk of smothering, which sends a chill arrow through Gon’s heart and makes him withdraw his hand from the quilt he was admiring. He does pick out a thick leaf-green rug from a sample they have, imagining it beneath the crib and rocking chair as an island of calm. 

He doesn’t feel certain in his mind about what colours or patterns to paint in the baby’s room, but discovers that they have colourful stick-on patterns to brighten up plain spaces, which are easy to apply and remove. He picks out a tall tree with an owl in it, and another of a big smiling whale shark surrounded by a school of small brightly coloured fish. He also chooses a few more outfits and toys. 

By now he can sense Hisoka’s rising irritation like steam on the back of his neck, and hurries over to the register. His mate arrives and dumps his armful of items, and two girls set about ringing it all in and packaging it. He gives his address at the Arena for them to send the furniture to; they promise delivery by the end of the week. 

On the way out the door he links his arm through the magician’s and gives him a peck on the jaw. Hisoka glances down at him, eyebrow raised. 

“Thanks. For coming.”

“I will not be building furniture or applying stickers to walls,” he says, to make his position clear.

“I know. It’s fine. I can do it. I want to do it.” He’ll be the one to make this home for his pup, to create its safe space, the place where they’ll live together as a family. He can feel a sense of calm, of satisfaction, steal over him.

Hisoka makes a low humming noise in his throat and steers him back towards the Arena.

  
***

The items arrive piece-meal from the baby store, the bassinette and crib first, then the rug, then the rocking chair. He’s not in a hurry and it gives him time to assemble the furniture that needs it. Hisoka arranges for some men from the Arena to take away the bed; they leave the dresser for the baby’s clothes and books.

Slowly the room begins to fill. He pastes the stencils on the wall, the owl’s tree overlooking the dresser and the sea-scape beside the rocking chair. The crib stands in the centre of the room; the bassinette will be with him and Hisoka so he can feed the baby in the night. 

It’s while he’s folding tiny clothes and putting them away in the dresser that he suddenly feels strange. There’s a smell of ozone, the onesie dropping from his fingers.

For a minute, everything blacks out. When he comes back to himself he’s lying on the floor beside the dresser, stiff and cold and exhausted. He reaches up and rubs his head, staring up at the ceiling. Slowly he sits up, feeling his belly – the baby shifts and he sighs.

He’s not sure what happened – he’s fainted before, but never from folding clothes. But everyone says being pregnant is really tiring. Maybe he’s just been working too hard on getting this room ready. 

He gets up and finishes folding the clothes, but his hands are shaky and he feels completely spent. He pads out across the empty apartment – Hisoka’s out at a meeting – and crawls into his bed.

He sleeps all the way through the afternoon, waking only when Hisoka calls him for dinner.

  
***

For quite a while, the pregnancy had very little impact on their sex life. Hisoka is easily aroused, and especially likes an early-morning fuck right after waking, Gon still sleepy and heavy-limbed. But as his stomach balloons, he can no longer lie on his front, or his back. Hisoka turns him on his side, entering him from behind and thrusting as he pants in Gon’s ear. But it’s unfulfilling and uncomfortable, even Hisoka struggling to get off. He settles grudgingly for hand and mouth jobs, Gon kneeling in front of him and working him off as the alpha moans, the room thick with sex and the scent of his arousal.

For himself, Gon doesn’t mind – he’s tiring more easily these days, and feels heavy and uncomfortable almost all the time. His back and feet are sore, his hands are swollen, and he’s constantly having to go to the bathroom. He’s rarely in the mood for anything more intimate than cuddling. Hisoka accepts it sometimes, allowing Gon to snuggle in against his chest and tuck his head beneath his chin, the scent of his happiness relaxing them both.

Those are the times Gon feels most at peace.

  
***

The room is ready. There’s still a month to go before he’s due, but Gon finds himself spending more and more time in his sanctuary, his nest. He brings in a heavy blanket and naps in the rocking chair in the afternoon, warm golden sun filtering in through the windows. Everything here is pleasant and calm; the soft toys with their welcoming faces, the colourful pictures on the wall, the vibrant green of the rug he buries his toes in.

He can feel his scent glands pressing while he’s there, slowly embedding his scent in the room, a safe, calm, protective atmosphere. Somewhere the baby will feel cared for and comforted. He cuddles with the toys and runs his hands over the smooth cotton of the clothes, covering everything with his smell, making it his. 

No matter what happens outside this room, their pup will always be safe here. Will always be loved.

  
***

It’s late. Sometime in the middle of the night Gon’s woken as he often is these long nights by the need to go to the bathroom. Hisoka’s sleeping beside him; he’s a light sleeper, but he’s learned to ignore Gon’s regular exits and entrances and he doesn’t move now when Gon sits up.

He creeps across the room into the bathroom, shutting the door and turning on the light. 

His belly feels heavy tonight, ungainly and uncomfortable, the baby bearing down low. He pisses and flushes, crossing to the sink to wash. 

It’s while he’s staring at his exhausted face in the mirror that he feels it again – that strange sensation, and the taste of ozone. His hands tighten briefly on the countertop, then the world rips apart sharply into blackness.

  
***

Gon comes to slowly. He’s lying on the cold marble floor, his body heavy. He raises his head but it’s hard, he feels like a steel pole’s been rammed down his spine, is holding him stiff and still.

There’s an odd smell. It’s familiar, frightening. A smell that makes his heart twist. 

Blood. 

He looks at his hands, down his front: clean. Then he moves his legs and he feels it. Warm wetness between his thighs. 

Gon cranes his neck and sees it: a pool of dark, glistening blood on the floor beneath his boxers. He makes a low, sick sound. Ice water pours through his veins, sapping his strength, his stamina. 

“Hisoka,” he whispers, voice weak. His heart is thrumming an uneven rhythm, his vision strobing. “ _Hisoka_ ,” he calls, louder.

There’s a heavy thump from the other room, as of something falling out of bed. Then Hisoka is slamming into the bathroom, face pale. He looks down at Gon, at the pooled blood, at the scarlet smears on the white tile. He grabs a robe from the back of the door, the red silk flashing like a flag in Gon’s darkening vision, and then stoops to pick him up. 

There’s a rushing of wind in Gon’s ears, a sound like the distant sea. Hisoka snaps something at him, something fierce and brittle, but he can’t make out the words. Then he’s moving, cutting through their dark apartment and out into the hallway. 

The Arena empties after midnight, the halls still lit but hollow. Gon rests his head against Hisoka’s shoulder as the magician stalks through them, his eyes burning beneath the fluorescent lights. 

Gon watches those eyes, holds them in his sight as his vision slowly begins to dim, as the edges grow dark and blurry. They’re unblemished, unsoiled gold, with a clarity of purpose that gives him hope. Hisoka will fight for him, will kill for him. Will break himself in two for him. 

“Hisoka,” he whispers. He wants to tell him that he understands his fear, that he believes in his strength. But the words don’t make it to his lips.

“Don’t talk,” snaps Hisoka. The magician is all he can see, the rest of the world just a whirlwind of light and colour, textures and shapes bleeding into each other. Gon traces the sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his cheek, the shadow of his brow. Stares at them all as though he’s never seen them before. As though he’ll never see them again. Emblazons Hisoka’s image in his mind: his mate, his match. 

The world goes from red to white, and now there are people, voices out of the distance and sharp smells that make him tuck his face away against Hisoka’s familiar scent. 

Hisoka is growling out words, his voice harsh as barbed wire, rough and tearing. And then his mate’s warmth is gone, his scent fading, and he is on a cold hard board with strange faces all around. 

He can hear Hisoka calling to him, snarling like a wounded animal. Then he falls silent. 

Gon’s vision is darkening, the white lights above fading to amber, then to grey. Colour bleeds out of the world followed by sound and sensation. There is just coldness, just a terrible distance between him and everything else.

Between him and Hisoka. 

In the end, he thinks, his life was never in Hisoka’s hands. It was in his own all along. As it always has been. He belongs to no one but himself. 

And the pup?

Gon gives a high, keening cry. Cries for the life in his belly, cries for its future. 

Cries for his own future. 

Darkness.


	14. Interlude: Madness, Madness, Madness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was posted a day after chapter 13, make sure you don't miss that. :D

Hisoka wakes feeling anxious and alarmed: uncomfortable, unusual feelings. His eyes snap open in the dark, his senses searching for the danger, the wrongness that his instincts tell him is present. 

A moment later he hears the cry: quiet, choked. “ _Hisoka_.”

He tumbles out of bed, foot catching on Gon’s ridiculous flannel sheets, and lands hard on the floor. He’s crossed to the bathroom in an instant, throwing open the door and letting light stream into the dark bedroom.

With it comes a thick, familiar scent. 

Blood. 

Gon is lying on the floor, face too white and body cramped, his arms covering the swell of his belly. Beneath him is a pool of dark, rich life’s blood. It is growing.

Hisoka reaches out and takes the robe down off the back of the door, wrapping it around his nakedness and then squatting down on the floor beside the younger man, the omega, his mate. Gon’s eyes roll up towards him but he says nothing; his lips are blue as if with cold – lack of oxygen in his blood. His breathing is shallow, weak. 

This isn’t birth. It’s death. 

A rough storm of emotions ravages him even as he reaches out and scoops Gon up – endless rage warring with bottomless grief; the sharp cut of fear and the dull ache of guilt. Old, old feelings, the kind he hasn’t known in decades. The kind only Gon elicits in him. They make his jaw work, curses and threats spilling out of his mouth as he tears through the apartment and out into the hallway leaving a dripping trail of blood. 

Gon is staring up at him, his beautiful brown eyes growing dark. “Hisoka,” he whispers, and Hisoka can hear the effort, the life flowing out of him like sand from an hourglass with the one word. 

“Don’t talk,” he snarls, tightening his grip and lifting him higher. The elevator arrives and he steps in, kicking the H button with the heel of his foot so hard the glass cracks. But the button still lights up and the elevator speeds downwards, towards the hospital. 

He’s breathing hard, his heart shuddering in his chest. Not from any physical effort. His instincts are screaming at him as Gon’s heartrate grows uneven, his body going slowly limp. As Gon’s life slips away so too does Hisoka’s sanity, his jaws eager to rend and kill, his fingers hungry for violence. He will build mountains of bodies if that’s what it takes to save his mate, will construct a monument to death, will kill every man and woman in this Arena to keep Gon’s heart beating. His head is full with the reek of Gon’s blood; it soaks through his robe to his skin, streaked across him like a brand. 

_Here walks one who failed his mate._

Hisoka snarls as the elevator finally reaches the hospital level, walking out and shattering the glass doors to the emergency room with a flash of nen. He walks unconcernedly through the shards, his feet swathed in Bungee Gum. The receptionist takes one look at him, the sole occupant of the waiting room, and runs to get a doctor. 

What seems like second later medics are buzzing around him like flies, the air thick with the hum of questions and orders. He lets them guide him to a flat white-sheeted bed, his movements heavy and deliberate, unmoved by their stethoscopes and needles. 

Hisoka lays Gon down on the bed and they crowd in close, a half-dozen of them surrounding him like rats eager to gnaw at a corpse. Words like “Ecclampsia,” and “Seizure,” and “Placental separation,” are thrown about; he catches little and understands less. His hands are coiled like snakes, ready to strike the instant a threat appears. His eyes flash back and forth unblinkingly, his focus so intense he can feel the Bungee Gum around his feet beginning to slacken, to boil. 

He has never lost control of it before but he loses control now, feels it seeping away from him like rainwater, filling the cracks and divots in the floor.

Then some decision seems to be made – people are running, the bed is being wheeled out – shouts about operating theatres and calling surgeons. 

They press him back, away from Gon’s side, pulling the gurney out and rolling it down the hall. He follows, heedless of their words and pleas and attempts to stop them. He pushes past them like the ocean ruining a sand barrier, follows Gon into a wide open room with bright lights and green drapes and trays and trays of glinting metal implements.

Knives. Retractors. Scalpels. Instruments of pain, of injury, of death. Hisoka rears up, strikes out towards the table they’re putting Gon onto, men and women in masks and gloves already cutting his boxers off, leaving him bloody and naked and helpless. His head is turned towards Hisoka, his eyes blank. 

Hisoka roars. He leaps forward, mad as a cornered beast, shoving past doctors and nurses. 

“Clear,” says someone in a neat, cold voice from behind him, and he’s suddenly in an empty ring of space as the others step back. 

Pain rips through him, just the briefest instant of it. Then everything fades out to white, grey, black before he hits the floor.

  
***

He’s not out for long, Hisoka knows as soon as he wakes. His body is crumpled on the floor beside a wall. His wrists and ankles are shackled, heavy chains bolted to a solid metal block in the floor. It stinks of alphas, of rage and agony and madness.

There’s an atmosphere of controlled anxiousness to the room, and a reek of blood and bodily fluids. Hisoka blinks upwards and sees a table surrounded by figures in green, some of them splattered in red. There’s a quiet beeping and a low murmur of voices – sharp, rote phrases requesting tools and returning them.

He can’t see Gon, can barely catch a hint of his scent, but he knows he’s there beyond the green sea of bodies. He whines, pulling at his restraints, fighting the heavy metal shackles. His thoughts and limbs are heavy with drugs, his sight slightly blurred at the edges.

No one pays one instant of notice to him. 

_Gon. Gon. Gon._ The name rings steadily in his thoughts, the only thing he can focus on. He’s muddled and maddened, feels furious and thwarted and above all stolen from, his mate no longer within his grasp. He pants heavily as he tries to work himself free but his naked skin is slick and sweaty, his grip unreliable. 

He can’t free himself. 

Time passes, Hisoka slowly cutting his wrists and ankles to bloody pulps as he relentlessly works at the cuffs. His skin is hot with the fire of his fury, his teeth grinding until his jaw aches. The beeping in the room speeds and slows, the anxiety of the green-suited team rising and falling with it. 

Finally someone gives a gasp, a sound like a bottle of carbonated water being opened. And then, ringing out in a clear, high tone above the beeps and murmurs and shuffling is a thin wailing cry.

Hisoka stops fighting, looks up. One of the figures carries a tiny red burden away from the group, crosses over to a separate table and lays it down there. 

His pup is crying. 

It’s like a slap in the face. Like a bucket of cold water thrown over him, like an injection of sanity. 

He sits up, stops fighting his bonds – made to contain the strongest alphas in Heaven’s Arena while their omegas receive life-saving care – and tracks the nurse’s movement with his eyes. She is cleaning and weighing the whelp, scooping liquid from its mouth and cleaning blood from its skin. 

“Bring it to me,” he commands, voice rough as rusted iron, his tone impetuous. She glances at him, eyes wide above her mask. “Bring it,” he repeats.

Slowly she scoops the child up and carries it over. A long, gangling body with short limbs, a round head already covered in dark black-green hair, a pinched red face. She stays out of his reach – some alphas can turn violent, even to their offspring, while they or their mates are in danger – but lets him look at the pup. 

His pup. This is the life Gon has been nurturing, the seed he planted in his mate so many months ago now when they were separate, needy but alone. 

Hisoka looks over to the table where the surgical team is still working feverishly. He may be alone again soon. The thought drives daggers into his chest. The pain is worse than the loss of his fingers, his foot, his beauty. Worse than the beatings of his childhood or the failures of his adulthood. 

“Will he live?” he asks the nurse, still standing nearby with the pup, his eyes looking towards Gon.

Even over the blood and the sanitizer he can smell her pity. “I hope so,” she says softly, then steps away.

  
***

Gon survives the surgery, the team hooking up pint after pint of blood and working for hours to stop the bleeding. When they finally close the incisions and transfer him gently to a stretcher, the surgeon comes to release Hisoka.

His wrists and ankles are bloody messes. He uses Texture Surprise to stop the bleeding; has no time for or interest in medical attention. “Well?” he growls.

“He’s very weak, and has had a huge loss of blood. If you hadn’t lived in the tower, he would probably have been dead before you arrived at a hospital. As it is, his chances are roughly 50-50. The next 24 hours will be the hardest.”

Hisoka stares up at him. 

“The pup is only 5 pounds 6 ounces, but that’s to be expected for a premature delivery. He has good responsiveness and pulses.”

“So it will live?”

The surgeon nods. “He,” he says. “Your son.”

“Very well.” Hisoka stands, eyes adjusting to the strangeness of the drugs in his system. 

“We’ll get them settled in a room, then you can –”

“I go with them,” says Hisoka. His stare leaves no room for disagreement and the surgeon nods slowly. 

He follows the gurney out of the OR, the room bloody behind them.

  
***

They settle Gon in a solo room hooked up to a myriad of monitors, IV and blood products. The baby is placed in a rectangular plastic bassinette in the corner, with a nurse coming in to check on both of them regularly.

Hisoka spends a long time standing at Gon’s bedside staring down. His mate’s face is slack in sleep but worn, as though he had been fighting for days. His skin is almost translucent, his skull seeming prominent beneath its stretch. The nurses have washed him off with wet wipes but there are still small speckles of blood on him.

Worst of all is his scent, nothing but blood and fluid. His body, recognizing its weakness, is trying to conceal itself, not releasing any of his usual sweet smell. The result is a reek of illness and death that makes Hisoka’s skin creep. He bends and licks at Gon’s face and neck, covering him with his own possessive scent. Marking his territory, his mate as his and his alone. Gon doesn’t react. 

Night ticks by, the moon setting far out over the horizon and the darkest hours settling in before dawn. At some point the pup wakes and begins to wail; Hisoka crosses over to it and stares down dispassionately at the tiny figure swaddled in a white and blue blanket. 

Its wet, angry eyes are gold as old coins. He reaches out a finger and wipes it through the tears rolling down its pudgy cheeks, raising his finger to taste them. The child is curiously scentless – children too young to present do not have their own scents but wear those of their parents who constantly impress their marks upon them. And neither he nor Gon have yet held the whelp, have had any time to mark it. 

Reacting to instincts, Hisoka leans down and licks the child’s tears away, leaving behind his strong alpha scent on the baby. 

His son.

  
***

Sometime after sunrise he goes back to the apartment to wash and put on clothes. He only intends to be gone a few minutes but as he enters he’s struck by Gon’s strong scent. The apartment smells of both of them, of course, but in the past few months Gon has made it his own, his nest. Hisoka pads slowly through the open space following his nose, eyes closed. Inhaling his mate’s scent, the clean, calming smell of him.

He ends up in the nursery where Gon’s scent is the strongest. He hasn’t been in here often, has left Gon to make what he will of the space. The cute stickers and colourful toys don’t appeal to Hisoka’s aesthetics but his heart swells at the thick, comfortable smell of it. This is where Gon intended to raise their pup, to shelter it, to love it. This is his place, safe and welcoming. Hisoka crosses to the crowd of small soft toys on the dresser and lowers his face to them; he can imagine Gon nuzzling them, cuddling them, talking to them about his hopes and dreams. 

Hisoka finds himself breathing hard, his chest aching, his throat tight. He feels dizzy, feels strange and lost and alone. 

He’s spent almost his entire life alone, has thrived alone. Until Gon taught him the pleasure in sharing his life with another. Until Gon taught him to want. 

Until Gon made him both strong and weak, both satisfied and so, so hungry. 

And now what is he? 

He smashes his fist down on the dresser; several of the toys spill off onto the floor. He stares down at them, then turns, stalks out of the room, and slams the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from [this fabulous HxH AMV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO-ZaF4FJls).


	15. Beyond the Edge

Gon’s floating in the middle of the ocean. The water’s gentle and warm, washing over his skin as the waves lap against him. He feels weightless, feels free. 

Above all he can see is blue sky for miles, clear and unblemished. 

In the distance, near the horizon, sea spray is rising in a billowing, heavy mist. It’s far off, very far, but he’s drifting towards it. The currents are pulling him in that direction. 

A long, thin shark with a black-tipped fin slips past him, its large eye blinking at him. “Friendship is for life,” it says in Leorio’s voice. “But money can’t buy you time. Don’t squander your days, Gon.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, puzzled. 

“I thought we would be friends forever,” says the shark. “But then he died. He died. He died.” It flicks its tail and swims away against the current, its voice fading. Gon floats slowly onwards. He can see rainbows over the mist now; bright and beautiful – all the colours he’s ever seen, ever known. They shift and merge in a never-ending kaleidoscope. He reaches out, but they’re far off yet. 

From down below a large, splayed shadow emerges: a huge but delicate skate, slipping gracefully through the water. Its black wings beat slowly, mournfully. 

“Family is bright as a flame, and just as fleeting. You never know when it will be extinguished.” The skate has Kurapika’s voice, low and sad. “Treasure it, for emptiness is living death.”

“Kurapika?”

“I loved them, but they were still taken from me. Gone forever,” sings the skate, and it turns and disappears into the darkness of the depths. 

Far away there’s a quiet, steady sound like white noise, like paper tearing. It’s coming from the mist. Gon drifts closer, craning his hearing, but while he knows that he knows this sound he can’t give it a name. He’s moving faster now, the water becoming uneven, choppy. The waves are tipped with white, his body rocking with their motion. 

A porpoise leaps up beside him, shining silver in the sun. “Gon! Don’t leave me! Gon! Stay with me,” pleads Killua’s voice, but the porpoise can’t keep up with him, is falling behind.

“Killua?”

“Gon, Gon, Gon,” echoes its voice, quieter and quieter. 

Gon tries to look behind him but the water is rough now and a wave splashes into his face, salt water blinding him. 

“You don’t want to go that way,” says a voice from above. A voice he hasn’t heard in years, but still knows.

“Ging!”

He blinks painfully and sees a white albatross soaring overhead, its wide wings bright. “Why not?” he asks. 

“That’s the edge of the world. The Falls.”

“What’s there?”

“Nothingness. It is the End,” answers the albatross. 

Gon looks towards the mist. It’s rising off a waterfall, he realises, and the sound is water rushing over the edge. “But it’s so beautiful,” he says, looking at the rainbows. They make him feel calm, relaxed. Even as the water grows violent around him he’s not afraid. “I want to see it.”

“You will, someday. But is now your time?”

“How do I know?” asks Gon. But the albatross is peeling away, flying back away from the falls, from the edge of the world. “Ging?”

There’s no answer. 

He can see that the water is white and roaring at the edge, can see the spray rising clearly now. He’s only a few minutes away, is being dragged relentlessly on. 

Why shouldn’t he see the falls? Why shouldn’t this be his time? They’re beautiful, more beautiful than anything he’s ever seen. The colours are ever shifting, playing like the aurora but in a rainbow of hues, and he thinks he would never get bored of watching them. 

He’s close now, close enough that his ears are full of the noise of the falls, that the air is growing thick with spray. There’s a familiar smell to it – festivals and fairgrounds, sweet caramel and sweaty metal. 

Hisoka. 

He remembers: the touch of Hisoka’s tongue on his mark, the bloom of passion, the slow swell of his belly, the kick of the pup within him. Security, comfort, safety. 

Love.

Gon snaps up, kicking out even as the water churns around him, ripping him onwards. His head goes under, bobs up, goes under again and then he surfaces, coughing and choking and fighting. 

This isn’t his time. He still has Hisoka, still has his pup – they need him, he _wants_ them.

But it’s too late, the current’s too strong, he’s being torn over rocks, through white water, and then out. Out into empty air, out into a world surrounded by mists and rainbows. Out over the edge.

Falling. 

“ _Hisoka!_ ” screams Gon. 

From somewhere above comes an answering call. 

_Bungee Gum!_

  
***

Gon snaps into consciousness coughing and hacking, his body convulsing even as his desperate lungs suck in air.

Unfamiliar faces are staring down at him from a very bright room, eyes wide and shocked. Beside them, pale faced, arm outstretched, is Hisoka. Slowly he withdraws his hand. 

The adrenaline disappears fast, the hyper-pigmentation of the world fading to duller colours. A doctor comes, then another, taking measurements and asking him questions as he rapidly grows tired. He’s never been tired like this; it’s like his battery is empty, barely charged enough to keep him going. 

Hisoka stands beside him through it all, still and silent, eyes watchful. Eventually the others trickle out as Gon’s eyelids grow heavy. He reaches out a cold hand and feels the warmth of Hisoka’s grip. 

“You saved me,” he whispers. He doesn’t know what happened, but he’s entirely sure of it.

“I told you: You die only with my permission,” replies Hisoka, his voice rough. His grip is tight. 

Gon sighs and drifts off into a thick, dreamless sleep.

  
***

He drifts several times to a sort of half-wakefulness, aware of scents and light but not able to understand much. Hisoka’s nearby he knows by the constant scent of icing and iron; beyond that he knows only when the sun is up or down.

When he finally truly returns to consciousness it’s night time and only one low light is on over the head of his bed. Hisoka is sitting in the shadows, his eyes gleaming like a cat’s. He’s wearing dark-coloured clothes that make him hard to pick out but his scent is unmistakable. 

Gon feels strange – heavy and dull, his mouth dry and his belly strangely cold and sensationless. He blinks, puzzled, his hand reaching out to feel it. There’s a scrape of a chair and then Hisoka’s beside him, catching his hand. 

“Best not to probe too deeply there. The wounds are still fresh.”

“Wounds?” Gon looks up at him, puzzled. 

And then he remembers: the baby, _the baby, THE BABY._

“Hisoka,” he gasps, trying to sit up only to have his shoulders pinned to the bed. “ _The pup_ – is it…?”

“Your child is fine. Healthier than you, at the moment.” Hisoka turns and looks over his shoulder and Gon follows his glance. There’s a white rectangular plastic bassinette atop a narrow stand a few feet from the foot of the bed.

With his shoulders pinned by Hisoka’s unforgiving grip, he can only raise his head to look across at it. “Show me. Show me. Hisoka, please,” he begs, his body yearning for this, his need to see the pup, to hold it sudden and violent as a summer storm, and deeply physical. He’s on the verge of trying to fight off his mate and cross the room himself, his breathing growing frantic, his heart hammering in his ears. 

Hisoka clearly recognizes his frenzy, because he pushes him slowly back into the bed. “Quiet,” he growls, voice low and commanding. “Lie still. _Still_ ,” he repeats, teeth flashing. Gon’s torn between the need to obey his mate and his need to see his pup, sweating, wretched. “I will bring him.”

“Him?” Keens Gon.

“Him,” agrees Hisoka. When he’s satisfied Gon won’t leap out of the bed without his restraining grip he straightens and crosses to the bassinette. He reaches in and, in his two hands, lifts out a small white bundle with a pink face. 

Hisoka carries the pup awkwardly in his hands, but the baby doesn’t seem to mind. The magician returns to Gon’s side and lays his burden lightly beside Gon’s shoulder; the tiny eyes are closed in sleep, the skin pink and soft, the hair green-black like his. Gon reaches out gently, gently, and strokes the back of his thumb over one chubby cheek. 

His vision goes blurry and for a moment he thinks there’s something wrong with him, that he’s fainting, that the world’s going dark. Then he realises that he’s crying. Tears are welling up in his eyes and running down his face, tears of relief, tears of joy. 

He carefully picks up the infant and raises him so that he can press his face to the baby’s – he smells of Hisoka, and Gon nuzzles him to add his own scent, loving and protective. 

The baby frowns, smacks his lips, and then opens his eyes. They’re gold – the colour of Hisoka’s, a perfect copy. 

Smiling through the tears, Gon presses kiss after kiss to his son’s perplexed face.

  
***

He’s too ill at first to feed the baby, instead watches with hungry eyes while the nurses bottle-feed the pup and change his diapers and swaddle him tight. They lie him down beside Gon, the tiny cotton-wrapped infant snuggled in against him to learn his smell, the slow steady beat of his heart. Gon watches him for hours, the snuffling of his little nose, the fluttering of his delicate lashes, the lick of his pink tongue over perfect lips. When the baby wakes he presses their foreheads together, smiling down into eyes of bright gold, his scent glands layering love and protection on top of the baby’s soft soap-and-powder smell. It mixes with Hisoka’s marking, tempering the alpha’s sharp possessiveness.

The first time he sees the long red incisions in his belly, stitched together with ugly black sutures, he stares. They cross his skin like barbed wire, gruesome, ugly. His organs are still swollen from the baby, his belly shrinking but still rounded, nothing like his usual fit flat stomach. 

“We’re like rag-dolls, the two of us,” he says to Hisoka. “All scars and stitches.”

“Mmm. A few cracks make the finished product more interesting,” murmurs the magician, perched on the window ledge, his long legs just barely reaching the linoleum floor. He looks exotic with his red hair and painted face and gold earrings against the plain white of the hospital room, like a bird of paradise planted in a desert. “You once told me you were broken, ruined beyond repair. Is that no longer true?”

“I think I was lost and lonely for a long time,” admits Gon, staring past Hisoka out the window at the city beyond. “I felt so… so _shattered_ when I finally realised I would never get my nen back. Like I was nothing but sharp edges and puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together anymore. Now… it’s like I’ve been glued back together again. It’s not pretty, and it’s not perfect. But I feel _whole._ ”

He looks down at the pup sleeping beside him, breathing gentle in the quiet room. “That’s thanks to you,” he whispers to the infant, who shifts slightly as his breath brushes his cheek. “And to you,” he adds, looking up at his mate. Hisoka stares back, expression unreadable. “You pulled me back from the edge. From beyond the edge.”

“I have never considered myself a healer,” replies Hisoka. “But you bring out the strangeness in me.”

Gon smiles. “Only you would consider that strange,” he says. And then, more slowly, “Hisoka?”

“Hm?”

“When you fought Chrollo – when you died… what did you see?”

The magician blinks. “In what sense?”

Gon swallows. “Before I woke up, something happened, right? I died.”

“Your heart stopped beating briefly. Then it started again,” replies Hisoka flatly.

“Because you started it with Bungee Gum.”

The magician shrugs agreement. 

“I think I knew I was dying. I mean… not knew knew. But I had this dream. I was in the ocean, and it was so peaceful. But I was drifting towards this huge waterfall at the edge of the world, where all the water poured over – it was spectacular, like nothing I’ve ever seen. My friends were all there – Leorio and Kurapika and Killua. And Ging. Ging warned me not to go over the edge, even though I wanted to, even though it was so beautiful.”

Hisoka raises an eyebrow. “And?” 

“And I started to go over, to fall through thin air. And then I heard your voice. And then I woke up, and you were there.” He leans over and presses a gentle kiss to the pup’s forehead, fussing for a moment with his hair. Then, without raising his head, he glances up. Speaks softly. “So I wondered, you know. What you saw.”

Hisoka’s smile is sharp, unamused. “My dreams are not so pleasant, nor do I believe in a life beyond this one. I met no one, saw nothing, and heard no voice other than my own.”

“Your voice? What did you say?”

His mate leans forward, eyes hooded, dull as dusty amber against the brightness of the world outside the window and yet deep, intense. “ _It’s not over yet_ ,” he intones, voice rough, dangerous. 

Gon stares at him, unblinking, unmoving. Slowly, like petals falling from a tree, the magician relaxes. “Many deaths mark the years between then and now. Now… I am neither sated nor starving.”

“You have us, now.” 

“Yes,” agrees Hisoka slowly. “I have you.”

  
***

A week passes, by the end of which Gon is sitting up and feeding the pup on his own, suckling it at his milk-swollen breasts. They’re small, just slight curves, but they satisfy the baby.

The baby, who is still nameless. Gon’s been wracking his head trying to think of names, but a name is an important thing, not a split-second decision. Hisoka wants no part of naming the child; he listens to Gon’s musings but refuses to offer an opinion. 

“It was you who decided to keep him,” he replies when Gon presses him, irked at his lack of interest. “You who carried him and made his nest; you who fill his belly. You name him.” 

“Hisoka~” groans Gon, resting his head back against the raised bed and staring at the ceiling. 

His mind remains stubbornly blank.

  
***

Gon considers a G name – like Gon, like Ging, a son to walk in his footsteps. He’s not sure that’s what he wants, though – not that his opinion will matter when the boy is grown, just as Grandma and Aunt Mito’s opinions hadn’t mattered.

He considers a happy name – Niko – or a strong name – Guu. Wonders about a plant name like Sedge, or an animal like Fox. 

Looking down at the baby in his arms, none of them seem to fit this little life that was born quietly, without his knowledge, and already has such a hold on his heart. He thinks of Hisoka, of the way the magician stole into his heart silently, sneakily. Like sire like pup. 

Gon blinks, and runs his thumb over the baby’s cheek. Golden eyes open, brightly innocent. Like Hisoka, yet not.

  
***

He’s discharged the next day, sent back upstairs in a wheelchair with strict instructions for rest and limited walking – no stairs, no lifting, no vacuuming. A nurse takes him upstairs in a wheelchair, the pup held tight in his arms and Hisoka padding along beside them.

Gon hadn’t realised how much he missed the apartment until he returns, until he moves from the wheelchair to the rocking chair in the nursery, the room full of soft warmth and a reassuring scent. He rocks back and forth with his baby in his arms, looking down at his face. He’s lost a little weight, as all babies apparently do, is slightly less chubby in the cheeks. 

Hisoka stands in the doorway propped up against the white wooden frame, arms crossed loosely, watching him. 

Gon looks up. “I want to take a picture,” he says suddenly.

“Oh?”

“Yeah – it’s an important day.”

“Is it? The day you returned home?”

“The day our baby gets a name,” replies Gon. “Get your phone, okay?”

Hisoka pulls out his phone, stepping cautiously into the nursery. This is not an alpha’s space, and omegas can be territorial of their nests. 

“Put the timer on and put it on the dresser,” instructs Gon. Hisoka raises an eyebrow. Gon stares back, smiling. “You’re going to be in it too!”

“Am I?” drawls the magician, but he does as he’s told, tapping through the phone’s settings and then placing it carefully on its side on top of the dresser, the lens pointed to the rocking chair. “Are you going to reveal the whelp’s name?” he asks, starting the timer and crossing to stand behind Gon, leaning against the wall next to the whale shark sticker. 

The phone is beeping with each second as the timer counts down.

“Yeah!” Gon looks up at him, smiling. “I wanted something that suited him, but something that reminded me of you, too. He’s your pup, after all.”

The timer’s hurrying now, beeping growing frantic. 

“So I thought – Sotto.”

Hisoka blinks down at him, face surprised, as Gon beams. In his lap, the baby sleeps on.

_Click!_

  
***

_Dear Killua, Leorio, and Kurapika,_

_The baby’s finally here! I had to have surgery and things got pretty intense, but everything’s fine now. I’m back in the apartment and all settled in. Having a baby’s a lot harder than I thought! But I love him so much it’s all worth it._

_That’s right, him – it’s a boy. His name is Sotto. I think Hisoka likes it, although he still won’t say what he thinks. He’s so stubborn, but sometimes I catch him scent-marking Sotto when I’m not looking. I think he wants everyone to know this baby is his._

_I hope you can come for a visit to see us soon – I should be fully recovered in a few weeks, and I think Hisoka will be really relieved when I’m able to look after myself again._

_Here’s a picture of us all. I hope you’re well,_

_Gon_

END

Update: Some [fabulous fanart](https://twitter.com/krs_cin/status/1284044559442300928) by uwu/Cin - check it out!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sotto means quietly or softly, although it can also (like hisoka) have the connotation of sneakily.
> 
> (Nikoniko is the sound of a smile; guu in this context is rock, like in rock paper scissors)
> 
> Thanks everyone for coming on this crazy journey! Much appreciation to all those who dropped a line to let me know what they were feeling! See you all on the flip side~


End file.
